Palau or Fiji? Where to next?

[Mossman]

Thanks everyone! Such good advice. We have decided to go with Dolphin Bay in Peleliu and a few days in Koror. It seemed closer to the dive sites and more our "speed."

Now onto my next mission of finding a GREAT but not toooooooo expensive camera to capture all of these wonderful moments in decent color (not just all green)

Where to start? There are so many choices!

LEP

Dolphin Bay looked like a very nice place during our quick visit (mainly a bathroom stop, but we walked the grounds a bit). I hadn't realized how much closer they were to most of the popular Palau dive sites than taking a boat from Koror. I look forward to hearing your report on the place as it sounds like a decent alternative to a liveaboard.

As for cameras, the main "trick" to getting decent color instead of green is lighting. I've seen occasional decent results using point-and-shoot cameras with internal flash, but most often it takes one or more external strobes to do the job right. Unfortunately, the housing and strobe(s) can easily cost several times more than the camera inside.

 

[robint]

As for cameras, the main "trick" to getting decent color instead of green is lighting. I've seen occasional decent results using point-and-shoot cameras with internal flash, but most often it takes one or more external strobes to do the job right. Unfortunately, the housing and strobe(s) can easily cost several times more than the camera inside.

exactly.... you can't have color without light, and an external strobe is going to give you that.


robin

 

[lep]

That's kind of what I figured with cameras. One of the dive masters in Roatan said her point and shoot Cannon took pretty good pics when she added a filter to it, but I forgot to ask her exactly what kind it was. What is a good brand to start researching? Can you give me a range of prices that I'm looking at?

On another note, RobinT I notice you are going to Scuba Club Cozumel. It is a great place and good dives, but the hardest pillows I've ever experienced in my life...my dive buddy and I seriously contemplated going to the market down the street and buying cheap pillows! LOL Enjoy, and thanks for the info

 

[bbarada]

Does Dolphin Bay offer all inclusive packages with meals, diving, etc? Where did you make your reservations?

 

[lep]

Bbarada, yes, we got an all inclusive package. We booked through an agent who was very helpful. Her info is as follows:

Lisa Wallner

Caradonna Dive Adventures/ Continental Airline Vacations

email: lisa@caradonna.com

 

[lep]

Can anyone tell me if we should buy a reef hook before we go to Palau?

 

[DMdoogie]

I agree with you about Lisa Wallner at Caradonna travel. We used her for two trips to Palau and this years trip to Fiji. She did a great job for us with our upcoming Fiji trip, the liveaboard cancelled our trip due to lack of passengers, and she managed to get us on the trip two weeks later, and get the liveaboard op to pay for the airfare flight change fees. We leave this Thursday.
As far as reef hooks in Palau, we dove with Neco Marine, and the DM had enough hooks on the boat for everyone. If you find you need one, you can get it in the dive shop or office of the dive op.

 

[robint]

Can anyone tell me if we should buy a reef hook before we go to Palau?

I have seen some for sale on various websites, but in Palau all the dive shops sell them. Our liveaboard provided them for us for the week and I expect the land-based ops do the same. Also, 2 divers on our liveaboard trip had their own reefhooks that they made themselves.

robin