Chuuk (Truk), Palau, Yap

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sev11

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Messages
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Location
Las Vegas
# of dives
25 - 49
Have booked a trip to Truk (Blue Lagoon Resort) for 4 days, Palau (PPR) for 6 days and Yap (Trader Ridge) for 4 days. After pictures from my father who worked for Continental Airlines of Micronesia in the 1970's been wanting to go ever since. Finally bit the bullet and leaving in May. I am an Advanced Open Water Diver (w/ Nitrox cert.), wife doesn't dive but I told her just to bring a lot of books......

I am hoping for some suggestions on a couple questions! We have planned a bunch of surface tours on each of the islands but am curious on the diving-

Truk - staying at Blue Lagoon Resort - what are the must do wreck dives? Been looking around the internet and it varies, also bought "WWII Wrecks of the Truk Lagoon" and been reading up on the different options. I am comfortable in the sport diver limits but don't wish to push over 120 ft. Still kind of new to the diving game as I only jump in a couple times a year.

Palau - staying at PPR and going with Neco Marine. Would assume they pick the dive sites but any recommendations if there is some options?

Yap - staying at Trader Ridge and planning on doing the dives to see the Manta's.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Truk: Fujikawa Maru; Shinkoku Maru --beautiful soft corals & fish life. Hoki Maru; Nippo Maru --interesting cargo & artifacts, but deep @ 120' between superstructure and deck levels looking further down into cargo holds.

Palau: Blue Holes to Blue Corner traverse with aiding current; Siaes Tunnel; Ulong Channel; any of the big wall dives (Big Drop-off, New Drop-off); Peleliu Cut & Express for strong current big pelagic action.
 
There are trip reports, galleries and slide shows from our Chuuk/Yap trip. Would suggest really knowing your computer. You don't have to dive past 100fsw but you will find as time passes you may want to. You should also know how it works if you do go into deco.

Chuuk trip report: Aquablue Dreams
Yap trip report: Aquablue Dreams
 
Are you talking four diving days or "four days total"?

Kensho Maru is a nice relatively shallow wreck with a very open and tidy engine room.

Betty Bomber is a good "third dive of the day" - very shallow. Going all that way, might as well see a plane too!

:D
 
Thanks for the responses! Planning 3 dive days Truk, 2 Palau, 2 Yap - will try and fit in 3 dives per day. Just throwing post-it notes in all the books at this point. Have not done a deco dive yet so not sure if that is the 1st place to try- do have a computer and been doing no deco dives on that. Thanks again for the help!
 
Thanks for the responses! Planning 3 dive days Truk, 2 Palau, 2 Yap - will try and fit in 3 dives per day. Just throwing post-it notes in all the books at this point. Have not done a deco dive yet so not sure if that is the 1st place to try- do have a computer and been doing no deco dives on that. Thanks again for the help!

Assuming they haven't changed the inbound flight schedules, if you're only on Truk for four days total, you're not going to be diving three days... unless you don't mind being dead tired the first day. Not the location - or dives - you want to be doing after travelling for 24hrs or more to get there.

And then you're gonna be in Palau for six days and only dive TWO of them?

:shakehead:

I'd swap one of the Palau days for an additional Truk day, except the only thing harder than conveniently getting from the US to Truk is conveniently getting from Truk to Palau...

:eyebrow:
 
My wife and I spent 7 days in Yap last spring break.
A very cool dive site in Yap is Yap Caverns. It's a maze of cuts in the reef, the dive covers a lot of area. There are fish everywhere, the dive begins and ends along the reef wall. Plenty of hard and soft coral, very colorful and full of life. So it starts as a wall dive, moves into a big swim through area, and ends along the reef again as a wall dive.
Our max. depth on the dive was 66 ft., avg. depth 35 ft.

Goofnuw Channel is where you'll likely see Manta Rays. Mill Channel is another place where your boat might go to see Manta Rays as well.

My wife thought that Vertigo was the best dive among the ones we did in Yap. This is a cool wall dive, one where we saw quite a few reef sharks up close.

Magic Kingdom was another place where we saw a lot of sharks. I counted 20 circling along the edge of the reef while diving here. You'll also see Titan triggerfish and bumphead parrotfish on most of the dives. The bumphead parrotfish we saw were very big. Turtles also.

Surface intervals were done on the boat. They served banana bread and hot tea. We stayed at manta Ray Bay Hotel and took their boats out. They have a sailboat right in front of the hotel that's been converted into a restaurant. Yap was a great time.

We just got back from a 7 day trip in Palau a couple of weeks ago. My favorite dive here was Ulong Channel. Sensory overload of fish, they are everywhere. multiple big Napoleon Wrasse, Grouper, black tip reef sharks, huge schools of baitfish. Giant Trevally, schools of bluefin trevally. Skipjack and wavy back tuna, Clown triggerfish. This is just an awesome dive. 67 ft. max. depth, 38 ft. avg.

Blue Hole to Blue corner, as has already been mentioned. Well worth checking out. It's considered by a lot of people to be a signature dive. A lot of sharks, big schools of baitfish, etc. Palau is just loaded with marine life.

There are a lot of wrecks in Palau as well. We dove the Iro Maru, which is a Japanese tanker. The deck is at about 85 ft. It's completely covered in coral. We didn't dive any wreck other than this one. Mainly due to the fact that we're going to Chuuk for 4 days over Memorial Day weekend, so we knew we'd be getting our wreck fix then.
We're going back to Palau this summer to just dive wrecks. So for this trip we only dove one wreck.
New Drop Off is another great dive, Dexter's wall is another. Palau is an awesome place, many of the dives are very cool drift dives. My wife and I are going to be making repeat trips back.

Surface intervals are done on different beaches, they last around two hours. Lunch is served at the beach rest areas. We really enjoyed Palau.

I'll let you know about Chuuk in about 6 weeks.:wink:
Have fun.
-Mitch

P.S. I agree, you have to spend more than 2 days diving during a 6 day trip. You're already there...what else are you going to do?
 
Just returned from a couple a weeks of diving in Truk and Pulau. Trip was great, thanks to my local dive shop.

Truk: stayed at Blue Lagoon and used Blue Lagoon Dive Shop
hard to pick a "favorite", depends on what you are looking for. The ships are so large, and there is so much to see and absorb, you could spend a week on each one and not see the same thing twice...
1. Shinkoku
2. Fujikawa
3. San Francisco
BLDS does an incredible job of showing people the wreck highlights and letting you discover stuff on your own. This is more technically oriented diving and having previous deep/wreck experience will be a big plus. The BLR accommodations are "rustic" but adequate and the service was very good. The lack of sharks in Truk was disappointing, too many have made their way into the soup pot. :depressed:

Pulau: stayed at PPR and used Neco Marine
don't miss dives
1. Seis Cavern and Seis Corner: We dove them as a pair.
2. Ulong Channel - nice combo of sharks on wall and spectacular reef scenery in the channel. We got lucky and hit it on a swift moving current. Better than Mr Toad's Wild Ride
3. German Channel - saw the only Manta of the trip here
4. Chandelier Caverns -
5. Blue Holes - reminded me of Trinity Caves in Grand Cayman

and snorkel Jellyfish lake

Neco did a really good job of diving the sites on "off peak" so we weren't running into the other 100 divers in the water, but that may have been as a result of my dive shop being a good customer of theirs. PPR is top notch...............order a shark bite and watch the sunset from the infinity pool.

PM me if you need more details. this is a very abbreviated list. :D
 
Thanks for the responses! Planning 3 dive days Truk, 2 Palau, 2 Yap - will try and fit in 3 dives per day. Just throwing post-it notes in all the books at this point. Have not done a deco dive yet so not sure if that is the 1st place to try- do have a computer and been doing no deco dives on that. Thanks again for the help!

As others have said you really should look at your travel plans - personally I would drop Yap and spend more time in Truk. Especially, because the flights between the islands are a bit harsh and you end up spending a day flying but only being the air for 4 hours.
 

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