Truk and Palau????

[Wildcard]

I know these kind of questions come up all the time but I hope those of you who have been there will help...We are looking at Truk then Palau for about a week each this October. Im thinking that one as a live aborad and one as a hotel kinda place would be a good mix. Having been to neither before, any input would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

[Mike Veitch]

Both better on liveaboards, Palau is minimum 1 hour rides to the main dive sites, 2 dive days leave at 9am and don't come back till around 330 or 4. You will be on your 4th dive of the day by that time on a liveaboard.

Truk: the island is best known as the armpit of the earth, at the hotel they tell you not to leave the grounds...again liveaboard best diving bang for the buck

 

[Wildcard]

Thanks for that. Any other input?????

 

[Madrone]

Im going to Yap and Palau in Sept. I did a bunch of research and am doing land based in yap and Big Blue Explorer live aboard in Palau. I heard good things about Big Blue, spacious, good crew, good food.

 

[seafox69]

land based diving is a lot easier on Truk than it is on Palau due to travel times so you could get extra dives in In Truk but usually not in Palau. Palau liveaboards will take you to sites that day boats will not. Liveaboards and day boats in Truk do same wrecks so no difference their. If you are a single liveaboard will be best. Flight schedule not perfect for liveaboards as saturday connection between Truk and Palau and long layover in Guam Palau to Truk.

 

[marpacifica]

I've been to Palau 4 times now, once on the Agressor. Highly recommend the Aggressor over land ops and if you run a search you should be able to find my trip report from November 2004. One thing I want to highlight about Palau liveaboards is that you get to do night dives at sites that the land based ops will probably never take you to, like Matt's Wall and Long Dropoff -- both sites have soft corals that bloom at night and amazed even jaded me each time I saw them. If you're not certified in Nitrox, you should seriously consider doing so while onboard. Makes the 4-5 dive days easy to cope with.

But there's also something to be said about land ops. If 2-3 dives/day is what you prefer, and you want to hang out for dinner and drinks in Koror, then land based is fine. I happened to be with a good group of divers when I was on the Aggressor, but if you get stuck with some boors and freaks, you have to deal with them in close proximity the whole week.

 

[Tavi]

If I were traveling that far, I'd have to spend a week (or 2) in Bikini Atoll while I was over that way!!

1 week Truk, 1week Paulau, 2 weeks Bikini Atoll.

hmmm..........guess I better start buying lottery tickets!!

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

If I were traveling that far, I'd have to spend a week (or 2) in Bikini Atoll while I was over that way!!

1 week Truk, 1week Paulau, 2 weeks Bikini Atoll.

hmmm..........guess I better start buying lottery tickets!!

Try 11 days Palau and then start planning 2007!

 

[Wildcard]

I saw the Agressor was leaving Palau? I think after September with some smoking hot deals. May have to look into that! Anybody hear about this? Thanks for all the input....
PS I dive all the time so nailing four or five dives a day is not real high on the list thus the shore based idea. Id like to look around....Keep the info coming!

 

[Mike Veitch]

Actually the Truk Aggressor is leaving and moving to Sulawesi, the Palau boat will be remaining in Palau

I would do a back to back on both those boats real quick cuz the Truk boat will be gone in a couple of weeks i think