Headed to Palau and Truk/Chuuk. Any suggestions?

[flybigjet]

Well, I'm turning 50 this year and my wife finally cleared me in hot to plan the dream dive vacation I've been lusting over for 25 years. I just got the vacation for the proper time period approved from my company, so I'm deep into planning and am looking for suggestions and advice. I've been around the pacific a fair bit, but have never made it to these two particular islands (although I'm sort-of-maybe considering taking a job over there that would allow me to fly between Guam, Truk, Palau, Yap and a bunch of other orphans regularly).

We are headed to Palau and Truk from 04-24 January 2017. Here's how things are setting up so far:

To get there: Fly Denver to Narita to Guam. Spend a few hours in Narita waiting for a flight, then layover in Guam.

Query: Any suggestions on an inexpensive but not scuzzy "crash for a day or so" hotel in Guam? Somewhere you'd take your wife that wouldn't break the bank?

Fly Guam to Palau. Stay at the Palau Royal Resort and do a week of diving with Palau Dive Adventures. Things we'd like to do (in addition to diving) are kayak the Rock Islands and take a tour of Peleliu battlefield (for me at least-- I'm interested in WWII and military history. My wife? Not so much-- she'll do a "spa day" when I go to the battlefield).

Fly from Palau to Guam. We'll need a layover hotel again.

Fly from Guam to Truk. Diving off the Odyssey for the week. We'll need a hotel for a day or so at the end-- probably stay at the Blue Lagoon? I'd like to look at some of the WWII sites on the island, but I'm not sure that there's much there (except the wreck of a seaplane base).

Fly from Truk to Guam to Narita to Denver. Any suggestions for a dayroom hotel in Narita? It's going to be a long day, but I have some time constraints at the end-- I need to get my wife back to Denver for her grad school classes and I need to get back to work.

Qualification-wise, I've been diving off and on for about 30 years in various places in the world-- Master, Nitrox, Wreck, Deep, yadda, yadda, yadda. No Tech (although I'd love to) simply because with what I do for a living and where I live, I've never had enough time to dedicate towards it-- there's no way I could stay proficient. Besides, the "dive to fly" surface interval time restrictions do NOT work well with what I do for a living!

My wife used to dive about 10-15 years ago when she lived in Hawaii, but hasn't since. I'm planning on kitting her out, getting her a refresher course locally in Denver, and then taking her down to Roatan for a week in August so she can get back "in the groove" and get her Advanced and Nitrox certs. She's super-athlete girl, so I've no doubt that she'll get back to speed quickly. Additionally, I intend to use Roatan as a testing ground for new equipment and a GoPro camera setup. Basically a test-run for all of our kit.

So. Advice? War stories? Recommendations on places to stay? Places to eat? Good or bad things to say about the Palau Royal Resort, Palau Adventure Divers, the Odyssey, or anything else? Hotel recommendations in Guam or Truk? Recommendations on who to kayak with for the Rock Islands? How to take a tour of Peleliu? Dayrooms in Narita? Anything else I might be interested in knowing before I go? Reading random things on the internet can only take me so far and I'm putting forward a significant amount of my retirement to make this happen-- I want to be prepared and have the best experience possible.

ALL COMMENTS VERY, VERY GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED!

Thanks, all!

R.

 

[blahanson]

I went to Palau and Truk Odyssey in November, had an amazing time. Stayed in the Bayview in Guam, reasonable location and price given we stayed there mostly between flights. The Odyssey moors off the Blue Lagoon, we rented a room and crashed until our 1am departure or so. I'd recommend it, I believe it's the nicest rooms in Truk and definitely most convenient. Loved the Odyssey, definitely don't miss a chance to dive with a guide! Be proactive abut this. We spent the week in Palau with Palau Dive Adventures, they picked us up and dropped us off at our hotel each day, gave us t-shirts and water bottles, mailed us thank you cards after and of course, amazing dives. We enjoyed Jellyfish lake all by ourselves, so serene. I've upload several videos to YouTube here: Brett Hanson

 

[Kevrumbo]

Bring a rain poncho/rain jacket shell with you wherever you go just in case you get caught in the usual tropical downpour cloudburst; also good for the skiff rides out & coming back from the divesites in cold rainy & windy conditions. Some good wet/dry trail shoes for sightseeing landtours and for walking around downtown Koror. There's a shuttle bus that starts service at 5pm from Palau Royal Resort (PRR), and can take you to the eateries/shopping downtown: pay the bus driver once for the $7 voucher card per person, and it's good for a week. Here's a top ten list of restaurants in Koror (Trip Advisor) --the nearest within walking distance to PRR are Cramers, Drop-Off Bar and Grill next to Neco Marine, and Bottom Time Bar and Grill at SamsTours.

Have good stable control & relaxed neutral buoyancy to float above the corals in Palau, along with non-silting frog kick if you go inside the wrecks of Palau/Truk. Espescially along the walls of Peleliu --when you see your Dive Guide gesturing to ascend up and away from the wall, do so without delay and stay together with the Guide. There can be a nasty down current on the Peleliu Express drift dive near the end, where the wall starts to quickly descend beyond 18m/60' to well over 39m/130' & deeper (i.e. Past Nitrox32 MOD, and getting low on tank pressure). And do not forget to bring an SMB and know how to deploy it from depth.

Too many divers (usually Japanese novices) start the Peleliu Express dive using the wall as reference, and before they know it, they inadvertently follow it as it slopes away, finding themselves at 30m/100' deep AND caught in a stiff downcurrent.

Deploy your SMB at least at your safety stop if you get separated from the group; if you're not low on gas or fightng a downcurrent, deploy earlier at depth depending on how much spool/reel length you've got. You gotta get that SMB up so the dive skiff driver can see you early, before passing the wall drop-off & into blue water open ocean with potential surface swells (makes seeing a small SMB harder to see).

The Peleliu Battlefield is eerily quiet during the day; absolutely spooky at night (stayed at the Storyboard Resort) --many Soldiers & Marines died & suffered horribly in this epic WWII campaign. Take a tour of the Japanese caves & fortifications if you have time, at the very least as a "Surface Interval Tour" between dives if your land based dive operation offers such an excursion --otherwise SamsTours has good day non-dive excursions of Peleliu, Babeldaop (Ngardmau Falls) and Rock Island Kayak Tours. Great book to read on the Flight & travel out to Palau/Truk is "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge, about the Peleliu Battle.

-----
I've been diving Truk every year continuously since 2007, sometimes multiple trips of two weeks or more per year. The diving is that good, but with the unfortunate caveat being the wrecks now undergoing stages of imminent final collapse after 72 years. The popular wreck's (Shinkoku Maru, Fujikawa Maru, San Francisco Maru etc) bridge superstructures' are disintegrating; some of the big wrecks lying on their sides (Heian Maru, Rio de Janeiro Maru), the hull itself especially at the bow is sagging & about to shear away. Be attentive during the pre-dive briefings, stay with your dive guide and again be in control with good neutral buoyancy & non-silting frog kicks if you penetrate inside. Be especially aware on wrecks with high octane Aviation Gasoline Drums --The Hanakawa Maru for instance has deteriorating/leaking AvGas drums in the cargo holds; you can see the whitish gasoline layer suspended in the water column with bright ambient light, but sometimes you can inadvertently swim thru the layer while traversing a dark corridor. The most concentrated, nastiest and hazardous places are the upper corners of enclosed bulkheads where undiluted AvGas percolates up into & collects (I've suffered a caustic chemical 2nd degree wrist burn by accidentally sticking my hand up through this stuff on the Hoki Maru). And lastly, don't be tempted to go inside the Fumizuki Destroyer engine room, or the I-169 Submarine aft hatchway on Backmount single tank -both over 30m/100' deep- unless you are Sidemount doubles trained with advanced wreck certification. (The two most popular tech wreck deep dives -Aikoku Maru and Oite Destroyer- at 60m/200', as well as the wreck sites at the Fourth Fleet anchorages starting at 45m/150' are usually not visited by Odyssey, unless during a rare tech week charter. You can arrange to dive them through Truk Stop Hotel/Truk Lagoon Dive Center or Blue Lagoon Dive Shop land based operations, either with pick-up from Truk Odyssey Liveboard or optionally staying land based at the respective dive-ops' hotels).

If all you had timewise was one week, then the Truk Odyssey would be the best way to visit all the popular wrecks within non-technical recreational depths (5 to 6 day itinerary, at least 3 dives on a particular wreck site/or 3 different wrecks per day). You will have the option to do the San Francisco Maru aboard the Truk Odyssey Liveaboard, but again unless you have technical diving certifications, they probably won't let you use their 11L AL80 twinsets and Eanx50/Oxygen deco gases. So in other words, you will be doing the San Fran Maru at 45 meters/150 feet deep --usually last dive of the week long itinerary-- on a single 11L AL80 cylinder (they do have larger 15L steel120 cylinders for rental as well) . . .and it will be an unsatisfyingly short bottom time of maybe 8 to 10 minutes with a few minutes of mandatory decompression on backgas starting around 12m/40 feet. Recommend bringing your own Oxygen Analyzer to check your Nitrox, or else you'll be waiting to use the dive-op's O2 Analyzer along with everybody else. Wear gloves, a full length skin suit 1 to 3mm thick with optional separate hood --all for jagged metal scrape/cut protection.

There's really nothing to do "in town" on Weno, other than the daytime tours of the ruins/bldgs of the former Japanese base from WWII (you don't want to be out & about in town after dark). The Blue Lagoon Resort has the larger grounds, better ambiance, and a small grocery mini-market. Truk Stop Hotel Dive-ops had as of January 2015, the best logistics for tech diving/mixed gas support. Blue Lagoon Dive-ops is the more historic of the two, run by Gradvin Aisek, son of the great Kimiuo Aisek. Both have fair restaurants (compared to Koror Palau), Truk Stop having the best & biggest pizza (order it "easy on the cheese" though!) in all of Micronesia. . .

Cold Winter Season (Jan), 27deg C/82 deg F air & water temps, but prevailing chilly NE winds 8-12 knots, 2 to 5' max wind chop/swells in the Lagoon, with scattered rain showers.

 

[Paul Haynes]

Hi

I'm sure you are going to have a stunning time. However note the wrecks are now undergoing notable deterioration and superstructure collapse in some areas, particularly the ships on their sides where the stresses on the hull and superstructure are immense. I would therefore advise extreme caution on such wrecks and wreck penetration is now more hazardous than it has ever been before. I would therefore pay close attention to the pre-dive brief and your dive guide's advice - however always trust your own instinct and if you do not wish to visit a particular area then remain clear and with consideration to what could fall down on you, always look above you.

If anyone else is thinking of a Truk or Palau expedition, my dive buddy / business partner Rod Macdonald the author of Dive Truk Lagoon, Dive The Japanese Wrecks of Palau, Dive Scapa Flow etc and I are running Wreck-X (Shipwreck Explorers) low cost expeditions to these and other destinations. If anyone would like information on these expeditions please feel free to drop me a line at: paul@wreck-x.com or visit our website at www.wreck-x.com

Here is a link to an article I wrote concerning diving one of Truk's many magnificent shipwrecks, that is available on the downloads section of my own website www.haynesmarine.com - hope you enjoy reading:

http://www.haynesmarine.co.uk/images/stories/Diving The Rio De Janeiro Maru.pdf

Safe diving

Rgds

Paul

 

[drbill]

Well, you've already booked what I would have suggested... diving with Palau Dive Adventures. I was there last spring and enjoyed diving with them so much that I'm heading back in two months to conduct a course in marine ecology with them. Have a fantastic time!

 

[Zeagle Eagle]

Kevrumbo, I did Chuuck and Palau around 1997. It was stellar. Some of the best diving I have ever done. Your review/advice is spot on. Only thing I would add is stop by the jail in Palau and get a story board made by the prisoners.

I did notice. On many of the dives on Chuuk, some of the Oxygen equipment on board seemed to be welded with rust to the floor of the boat. I hope this has changed since then.

I also seem to remember that the nearest decompression chamber was on Guam about 630 miles away by jet. A lot of the diving can be Deco so be very careful of your Deco stops as a chamber ride may be a long way away.

We did take a taxi around the island of Chuuk for a very nice tour. 6 of us in the back of a Toyota pickup and only one lawn chair. What a blast.

Would I go back....in a heart beat.

 

[flybigjet]

I'm so excited I'm almost literally vibrating. It's going to be a *long* year!

On the plus side, the planning and logistics is at least half the fun.

THANK YOU for all who've given hints and suggestions. Please keep it up.

R.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Kevrumbo, I did Chuuck and Palau around 1997. It was stellar. Some of the best diving I have ever done. Your review/advice is spot on. Only thing I would add is stop by the jail in Palau and get a story board made by the prisoners.

I did notice. On many of the dives on Chuuk, some of the Oxygen equipment on board seemed to be welded with rust to the floor of the boat. I hope this has changed since then.

I also seem to remember that the nearest decompression chamber was on Guam about 630 miles away by jet. A lot of the diving can be Deco so be very careful of your Deco stops as a chamber ride may be a long way away.

We did take a taxi around the island of Chuuk for a very nice tour. 6 of us in the back of a Toyota pickup and only one lawn chair. What a blast.

Would I go back....in a heart beat.

There now is a very good multiplace Recompression Chamber on Weno, Chuuk: I was a patient there in Oct 2008. . .

Type I Bends Hit in Chuuk

 

[blahanson]

Part of my prep, I bought a lava core full suit, gloves and socks. Was comfortable from day one to 14, about three dives a day for two weeks. Of course, some were in t-shirts and shorts ymmv. Two computers, for redundancy. An analyzer would be handy, I didn't have one but onboard the Odyssey my routine was to analyze well prior to the dive, off peak demand, like before breakfast. The mix won't change with time. Consider buying swimmers ear drops? I bought DAN insurance, given the lack of amenities in Weno.

 

[flybigjet]

Part of my prep, I bought a lava core full suit, gloves and socks. Was comfortable from day one to 14, about three dives a day for two weeks. Of course, some were in t-shirts and shorts ymmv. Two computers, for redundancy. An analyzer would be handy, I didn't have one but onboard the Odyssey my routine was to analyze well prior to the dive, off peak demand, like before breakfast. The mix won't change with time. Consider buying swimmers ear drops? I bought DAN insurance, given the lack of amenities in Weno.

I haven't looked for diver's insurance yet, but it's on my List Of Things To Do.

Ear drops are always in my kit-- I just bought another bottle last week, just to be on the safe side (it seems once you bring a bottle on the boat, a lot of people want to "borrow" it).

I tend towards warm-water diving and usually dive in swim-trunks, neoprene gloves (my fingers do tend to get cold), booties and a turtlefur top (warm AND keeps the bcd comfy- I have a long and short sleeve) or a shorty (depending on conditions). I have a 5mm wetsuit for slightly colder stuff or if I'm doing a penetration, but I'm considering picking up a 3mm for the trip-- I'm trying to decide if the 5mm is overkill and if it's worth it comfort-wise to spring for a 3mm.

If I dove more than two-three trips a year, I'd get an O2 analyzer, but honestly, for the amount Odyssey is charging, they can spring for one. Doing tanks off-peak works fine for me, and I don't think I can justify the price of an analyzer if I'm only going to be able to use it a few times a year.

Thanks!

R.