Steve P
Contributor
After a very long wait and many months of planning my wife & I finally made it to Micronesia where we spent a week in Chuuk & a week in Palau. I'll split my thread into 3 parts. First being travel logistics & tips for those planning a similar trip. Next 2 will provide more details about accommodations & diving. First, one word to summarize the trip - Incredible! If you haven't already, you must do this trip. Even with all the hype, and my lofty expectations, the trip was more amazing than I had hoped for. More on this later.
We used frequent flier miles & were able to cover all travel with supersaver awards. This takes some time & numerous visits to website, but we were able to fly from Chicago-Chuuk-Palau-Chicago for 82,500 miles per person. Travel dates worked perfectly. Left early on Friday morning & returned on Sunday morning 2 weeks later so the 16 day trip only cost 11 days off work. This is a long trip from Chicago. We arrived in Guam after 20 hours travel and spent 2 nights and 1 full day there. This worked out well. We were well rested when we caught a Monday morning flight to Chuuk and were able to get 2 afternoon dives in that day.
We stayed & dived with Blue Lagoon in Chuuk & dove on the Agressor in Palau. I considered the Odyssey in Truk but my travel dates didn't work out.
I was a bit concerned about weather (trip dates were July 21 through August 4) but other than some windy conditions in Palau that prevented us from visiting Peleilu we didn't have any problems. It only rained on 2 of our 11 dive days. I had been expecting rain on pretty much every day. One benefit of traveling when we did was noticeable lack of crowds. We had 2 to 3 divers on our boat in Truk and had every wreck to ourselves. In Palau we dove Blue Corner 3 times and never saw another dive boat. From what I've read that's not typically the case - especially if land based.
Travel tips include the basics. Remember to pack light (clothes) bring snacks for the flights, your save-a-dive kit, we brought dive skins and 3 mil. & used both. Also I borrowed a luggage scale from a friend. It came in handy.
On to Truk Lagoon trip report . . .
We used frequent flier miles & were able to cover all travel with supersaver awards. This takes some time & numerous visits to website, but we were able to fly from Chicago-Chuuk-Palau-Chicago for 82,500 miles per person. Travel dates worked perfectly. Left early on Friday morning & returned on Sunday morning 2 weeks later so the 16 day trip only cost 11 days off work. This is a long trip from Chicago. We arrived in Guam after 20 hours travel and spent 2 nights and 1 full day there. This worked out well. We were well rested when we caught a Monday morning flight to Chuuk and were able to get 2 afternoon dives in that day.
We stayed & dived with Blue Lagoon in Chuuk & dove on the Agressor in Palau. I considered the Odyssey in Truk but my travel dates didn't work out.
I was a bit concerned about weather (trip dates were July 21 through August 4) but other than some windy conditions in Palau that prevented us from visiting Peleilu we didn't have any problems. It only rained on 2 of our 11 dive days. I had been expecting rain on pretty much every day. One benefit of traveling when we did was noticeable lack of crowds. We had 2 to 3 divers on our boat in Truk and had every wreck to ourselves. In Palau we dove Blue Corner 3 times and never saw another dive boat. From what I've read that's not typically the case - especially if land based.
Travel tips include the basics. Remember to pack light (clothes) bring snacks for the flights, your save-a-dive kit, we brought dive skins and 3 mil. & used both. Also I borrowed a luggage scale from a friend. It came in handy.
On to Truk Lagoon trip report . . .
