Where to go for 7 days in the S. Pacific?

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C

CODiver78

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Messages
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Location
Mile High
# of dives
50 - 99
Hey there. I am an American who recently moved to Melbourne, Australia for a few years with my company. In the past few months, I have obtained my Open Water and Advanced Open Water certifications along with most of my scuba gear.

Coming up in July, I have a week off of work and I wanted to take an exotic dive trip somewhere in this part of the world. Since I will be in Australia for the next couple years, I will have several opportunities to dive the GBR, so I was looking for areas outside of Oz.

I guess the relevant info is that my dive count is still a little low (12 dives total), I will be going solo as none of my mates can get the same time off and the budget is figured to be about $2500AUD all in.

A place with decent apres dive activities is always a plus! At this point, I am considering Palau, but any other thoughts/advice would be appreciated!
 
Palau is awesome, but it can be a little hard to get to from there. Even though we're next door neighbors, here's no direct flight - you would have to go through Guam, (or maybe charter through the P.I. or Taipei.) It's kind of an expensive flight to, because Continental has a monopoly.

But if you get here, the diving is first rate.
 
vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu,
vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu, vanuatu,

4hrs by plane, lovely, friendly people, warm waters and wrecks, reefs and visability!

problem with palau is you are going to waste alot of time getting there (melb/cairns/guam/palau) and return

check out Allways Dive Expeditions (ask for Clint) or Scuba Diving Trips, Dive Travel Agents. Scuba Diving Holidays - Dive Adventures (ask for samantha jackman)

you can either fly melbourne/brisbane/santo and be diving the Coolidgee or fly melbourne/sydney/port vila and dive some of the smaller islands (Hideaway Island but over christmas we dived Tranquilty-VERY basic but loved the diving)

otherwise you can base yourself in Vila and dive via Nautilis or Big Blue (mike and maggie crawford)

oh - in case you missed it - vanuatu!!


OTHERWISE - Niue (melbourne/NZ/Niue) - fantastic viz and not oftened dived, you might even get whales like hubby did years ago PLUS they use the NZ dollar and at the moment you get $1.26NZ for every aussie dollar!


EDIT: according to the alwaysdive site - you can fly direct now from Melbourne to Vila :multi: (but check it out first)
 
For some reason I get the distinct impression that you think Vanuatu would be a good choice! Given my relative lack of experience, do you think being based in Port Vila or Santo would be the better choice for dives? Also, how difficult is it to get between those two points? (i.e., is it possible to fly into and stay in Port Vila for a few days, then take a boat to Santo and then go back to Port Vila?) I may also shoot an email to those two sites that you sent to me.

Thanks!
 
:D

if you dive Santo, you are diving the Coolidgee - a shore dive wreck the size of the titanic plus a nice house reef and more wrecks Dive the SS President Coolidge in Vanuatu with Aquamarine. both aquamarine and allen powell have a good name for the Coolidge and i hear good things about coral quays for accomodation.

if you go to port vila you are diving smaller wrecks and reefs but you dont have the stress of diving the Coolidge (coolidge is a GREAT wreck but its 20 to 72 metres)

can you squeeze a few more extra days off work? you could go to santo for 4 days (you do a number of progressive dives on the coolidgee, deeper each day) and then fly to Vila for more another 5 days

over christmas we stayed at Tranquility (from Vila a small bus ride and then a boat ride). its VERY VERY basic but we had a great time and here is my trip report: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/pa...stmas-07-vanuatu-tranquility-trip-report.html

we also have had a few trips to Hideaway Island/Vila (was married there actually) and again, really like it but if i was sitting here and someone hands me $2K for a holiday - i would return to Tranquility because the diving was so nice and cruisey.


you cant take a boat to get from vila to santo - its a small hopper flight

although they do OW courses on the Coolidgee, it isnt going anywhere right now so you have plenty of time to dive it later on
 
I'm with Almitywife on the Vanuatu side of things , (apart from Tranquility island:shakehead:). Fab diving at Moso (where Tranquility resortis ) but the rental gear is past it so take your own and the resort is VERY VERY VERY basic.
My pick is to stay in Vila and go diving with Big Blue. Loads of nice cruisy dives, couple of good wrecks and handy for all that Vila has to offer in the way of some excellent restaurants/cafes.
Never been to Santo but it's on our list for next time and the Coolidge is meant to be AWESOME.
Also worth considering in July is Niue. It is the start of the humpback season and you can swim with them if you are lucky enough to get close. We had a fantastic week there. VERY un-touristy but beautiful. Ian and Annie at Niue Dive are great and run a fab dive shop. We swam with spinner dolphins every day on the way to the dive sites. The flights from NZ are a bitch at really unsociable hours. Not even sure you can fly there from oz...? Think it may be via NZ. Don't go if you are afraid of sea -snakes. Niue is famous for them and we saw heaps on every dive.
 
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