KpoxaAU
Registered
Not kidding . . .(been to Trukstop Oct'08; Jan'09 and Nov/Dec'09).
If you're comfortable with your own tanks, manifold & bands, there's a DHL shipping office on the road between the airport and Trukstop (DHL website says three days transit time from mainland US). . . arrange delivery with whatever dive op you go with.
Agree. (TrukStop Nov'08, July'09, Mar'10)
Going to TrukStop, you not really need to carry you tanks, unless you are going with _very_ large group of tech dives and going to use twins sets for everyone. Being there (for my 3rd time) less than three weeks ago I can confirm that there are plenty of Ally 80' (total number about 90+), number of assembled (bands, manifolds, screws) twin sets of Ally 80' (not sure about total number, we used at least 8 sets, ask Kelvin), 20+ small stage bottles and rebreather bailouts. They all serviced properly. Kelvin at TrukStop definitely trusted blending station operator there, he the only fills the bottles for many customers at Truk outside dive shop including firefighters and medical.
BTW, Continental will charge USD100 each way every your tank, so if you insist to your tanks - you can go. The rent of tanks at TrukStop are included in your dive anyway.
There are only one things you really want not to forget - your stabilising plates, if you're on twins with DiveRite. It is always good having you own regs, harnesses and wings, however there are some sets in TrukStop, but you need confirm with them in advance. Having O2/He Analyser with you is essential, however for Nitrox you can use O2 Analyser which Truk Stop has onboard (have no idea about BlueLagoon, and both liveaboards).
Mentioned earlier - Truk Stop is the only place where you can get proper He mixes. You may find Thorfin carrying a He supply bottle, but you need to have your Trimix blender ready staying there (and the price of He on Thorfin will probably suck out all your budget.) There is no chance to get He mix in BlueLagoon and Odyssey. There is no chance to stay in BlueLagoon or Odyssey and get the Trimix tanks ordered from TrukStop - Kelvin maintans "clean filling station" and he is not distributing his tanks around or accepting tanks from other DCs.
Saying "proper mix", I mean that dealing with Kelvin, you dealing with blending profy. He is not going to waste your money and he delivers accurately correct mix as per your order. And - also very important - he does that always accurately in time. (Filling 40 singles of various Nitrox and 10 sets of various Trimix may have some time, obviously, in Truk, when your divers coming back from sea at 4p.m. and run away next day at 8a.m.). Also one of "plus" I found with staying in Truk Stop - you not listening the compressor running all the time in a background (as you do on liveaboards).
What is may be important for tech diver - the TrukStop DC stuff is good trained, without additional questions they know how to deal with surfaced tech diver, they pick up your tanks and equipment from a water, they carry your heavy equipment on a surface, leaving you to relax and not disturb your bubbles more than needed.
Also mentioned earlier - three Truk Stop's boats are not the "top ten in a world", but they are reliable, properly assembled, always carry O2 and they are probably the best on Truk.
BlueLagoon, Thorfin and TrukStop - all runs boats to the sites, and there is not a great difference between run-time, really. Almost all most popular sites are 20-30 minutes away from both shore DCs and I often saw Thorfin and Odyssey parked just across BlueLagoon and run the divers from there with their own boats. The thing is that not every site has a surface (or UW) buoy - hence there is no chance to jump to exactly correct location from Odyssey (Fumitsuki is good example, but not the alone). Also, last July storm moved buoys sometimes 30 meters away from common positions and on some sites they anchor the boat except of tagging to the buoy.
There is not really a big difference in a price which you pay "per night" at TrukStop and Blue Lagoon. And the rooms conditions are close. The essential of TrukStop that it is located near shopping places and you can get your fresh bananas and coconuts just crawling yourself a couple hundreds meters. I did not find the TrukStop location any way noisy through the day or at night (probably because I sleep like a baby after dives).
5 dives a day? Pf-f-f-f-f... Are you serious? Unless you are going to see tops of superstructures - take a dive sites map with marked depth and calculate yourself. And remember, that liveaboard are not going to jump from one site to another just because of your "wonderful plan". Obviously the interesting points at dive sites are a bit deeper, there is always "something" below which you want to get close and stay longer with your camera. However, that is the truth, that for "general observation" purposes dives you may cover many of sites (but not even close to all, neither to half) with Nitrox 32 and if you need special reduced mix - you can get it at TrukStop.
I have some videos captured for my friends and club about blending station at TrukStop, their pier and boats. As well as wrecks. Will distribute it later sometime if anyone will be interested, after I will get 5 posts . (sorry this may not happen soon, I prefer to read, not write).