Feb/Mar 2011 - Palau or Cocos Island, your opinions???

[ewaiea]

This is going to be one of those threads where the ultimate answer will be, "it depends on you".......but feel free to add comments where you see fit...

I'm a physically fit diver who can do "easy diving" or balls to the wall challenging stuff if the situation presents itself. I like the idea of big animal destinations but I also like the idea of how the dive sites in Palau appear to be so different from place to place. I'm attracted to Cocos Island for the exploratory feeling I get from some of your trip videos (i.e. diving in a far away place from a small skiff doing back roll entries) but the spoiled side of me (which I'm ashamed to admit) might think the Cocos dives might kind of run together - even though I'm sure the diving is amazing nonetheless. I don't consider myself a veteran of any well-known big animal destinations - so a trip like Palau or Cocos would be new for me.

If any of you feel strongly for either destination please feel free to chime in - but do take note of the time of year if you have any little known facts to add about conditions during the months of February and March. I am researching the websites of vessels in both destinations but I believe hearing from people who have experienced these trips first hand helps - this is just part of that research.

One more thing, if ANY of you have been on the Wind Dancer since it has been operating in Cocos Island or perhaps the Tropic Dancer in Palau I'd love to hear a trip report or at least a few details about your trips.

 

[Mossman]

Feb/Mar is an ideal time to visit Palau, not so ideal for Cocos. I didn't feel that the Cocos dives ran together - the sites are varied. In Palau, however, you might do different portions of the same reef wall, named as different dive sites but sort of appearing the same.

If big animals are what you seek, go to Cocos. Palau has sharks and turtles and napoleon wrasses to be sure, but not with the in-your-face intensity of diving with the killer beasts of Cocos. On the other hand, Palau offers more fish diversity, hard and soft corals, and yes, probably a bit more dive site diversity than Cocos (walls, corners, caves, holes, channels, wrecks, marine lakes and lagoons, it's really got it all).

Also, Palau is a bit more off the beaten track than Cocos, IMO. Cocos is an uninhabited (except the ranger) speck of island rather close to Costa Rica which is only two hours flight from Houston. If there were a plane flight to the island, it would take less than an hour. Rubber dinghys are probably the most effective way to dive, but you're not living like Robinson Crusoe, you're based off a luxury liveaboard. I didn't experience any sense of the "exploratory" when I dove there (though I did a bit in the Galapagos), but I find Palau a far more exotic destination than Costa Rica and more personally "exploratory" to me at least.

If they ever get a boat fast enough to make the crossing overnight, or decide to move the island closer to the mainland, I'll try Cocos again. Otherwise, I'd much rather bear the 30 hours of travel on airplanes and in airports and arriving halfway around the world, rather than bobbing around the same amount of time on a little boat in high seas only to make it a lousy 300 miles. For me, that's like driving to Las Vegas, and where's the sense of exploration there?

 

[NTSilver]

As Mossman says, it's not the good time of year for Cocos. In my 6 trips, the best time to go to Cocos, to see the schooling hammerheads in particular, is August. I don't mind the 30+ hour crossing. I do hate flying in airplanes halfway around the world. There is just too much margin of error in losing luggage, dive gear, camera equipment etc. (with a 5 hour layover at LAX, my husband's luggage with clothes for 3 weeks still didn't make it) I do plan to go to Palau someday, but I have never known it to be a big animal attraction.

As far as the Wind Dancer goes, I understand that because the Aggressor and the Wind Dancer are owned by the same company, they are having a hard time getting the permits.

In case you have an opportunity to go on a boat called "Adventure" I would steer clear. Their last trip to Cocos took 60 hours due to a passing storm. They dove 2 days and the compressor broke down - no one could fix it - so they headed back to Punteranas. I am sure that was not a happy trip back home.

 

[mjh]

As you know Cocos is all about sharks and rays. For these creatures it beats Palau hands down. As El Nina is starting Feb/March might be good in Cocos, colder water equals more sharks. On our last trip their we dove with a pair of pro photogs with over 2000 dives just at Cocos and both agreed that they would rather deal with colder water but see the sharks in massive schools. One note, with Cocos it can be fantastic or so, so. Both of our trips were great but we have heard of others that did not see hammer heads, silkies, or white tips in the numbers we did.

Palau is just a great "have it all" location. Some drift diving, great "tropical fish tank" dives, Jelly Fish lake, mandarin night dive, some sharks, manta cleaning stations, etc....

For both live-aboards are the way to go and of course for Cocos the only option. We have a "no-repeat" rule which we broke for Cocos and happy we did. Trip reports, galleries and videos for both at our site Aquablue Dreams

 

[robint]

I have only been to Palau, so that is my frame of reference.
~water was 82-85 degrees, crystal clear
~small fish, medium sized fish, big fish, colorful fish, huge schools of all types of fish
~sharks, lots of them there, reef sharks, white tip, black tip, and others - we saw so many sharks that I was starting to get bored with them, really!
~ mantas, we saw 7 of them on two separate days, some of the best dives of my life - mantas feeding above me and sharks swimming around below me, and a school of thousands of fish blotting out the sunlight next to me... it really doesn't get better than that.
~deep dives, wall dives, dramatic vertical breath-taking walls, blue holes, WWII wrecks, history buff stuff, hard coral and soft coral, every color in the rainbow
~liveaboard boat docks within a few minutes of each dive site, no long boat rides
~all drift diving with your boat right there to pick you us when you surface

as far as I am concerned, you can't get better diving than Palau.

sure, I love the videos I see of Cocos and Galapagos, huge schools of hammerheads, it would probably be on my list of places to go someday.

robin

 

[ewaiea]

I'm the type of weirdo who is always thinking 2 (or sometimes 3) dive trips out. I have wanted to go to Palau for over 12 years - I will probably opt for Palau. I read that temps in Palau for February can get into the high 70s....seems much cooler than most trip reports, does anyone recall the water in Palau having a "cooler" water season? As strange as it sounds, I like being able to leave the 3mm back home and bring the 1mm for some dives with the rash guard for others. Cooler water is by no means a deal breaker - it's just a bonus to dive in bath water.

I think Cocos will come in 2012 instead of 2011.

 

[robint]

I'm the type of weirdo who is always thinking 2 (or sometimes 3) dive trips out. I have wanted to go to Palau for over 12 years - I will probably opt for Palau. I read that temps in Palau for February can get into the high 70s....seems much cooler than most trip reports, does anyone recall the water in Palau having a "cooler" water season? As strange as it sounds, I like being able to leave the 3mm back home and bring the 1mm for some dives with the rash guard for others. Cooler water is by no means a deal breaker - it's just a bonus to dive in bath water.

I think Cocos will come in 2012 instead of 2011.

temps in the high 70s? I highly doubt that. We were there the first week of Dec and water was 82-83 on most dives, 84-85 on a couple. We asked about it and were told that the water temp does not vary more than a degree or two year-round. Our DMs all wore only board shorts to dive all week, me and hubby wore 3mm suits. A few other divers on boat wore swimsuits or shorties all week, and that was doing 4-5 dives per day. I got chilly a few dives, but then I always do. I even wore a beanie hood which the DMs thought was funny.
Topside air temps were in 80s but being out on a boat with the ocean breeze we were never hot. It was just warm enough to reheat your core temp between dives. The day we spent back on Koror before departing was unbelieveably hot and humid with no breeze! Huge difference from being on the boat. :shocked2:

robin

 

[Mossman]

I'm the type of weirdo who is always thinking 2 (or sometimes 3) dive trips out. I have wanted to go to Palau for over 12 years - I will probably opt for Palau. I read that temps in Palau for February can get into the high 70s....seems much cooler than most trip reports, does anyone recall the water in Palau having a "cooler" water season? As strange as it sounds, I like being able to leave the 3mm back home and bring the 1mm for some dives with the rash guard for others. Cooler water is by no means a deal breaker - it's just a bonus to dive in bath water.

Was there in early March and water temps were consistently 82-84 through "recreational" depths, can't imagine it would be much cooler in February, certainly never to the mid-upper 70's like you sometimes get in your frigid waters of Hawaii as it's only a handful of degrees north of the equator. Sure, maybe the occasionally upwelling or cold current might bring in a rush of cooler water, but that's only refreshing given the really hot and humid surface conditions year-round, coolest in Feb/Mar to be sure, but that's only relative - I've sweated in lots of tropical climes around the world, but never like I've sweated in Palau (for example, I was in Bangkok for a layover barely over a week ago, and enjoyed a nice few hours by the pool when the temps were in the 90s and the heat index supposedly over 100 with the rainy monsoon humidity - that would be considered a very pleasant day in Palau, especially if you had a little breeze).

Fortunately Feb/Mar is a good time to catch a breeze since the tradewinds are blowing, and you will be diving in bathwater (especially in Jellyfish Lake). Everyone has his/her own preferences, to be sure, and you can be picky and choosy when it comes time to making the rounds again on places you've already visited, but you honestly can't possibly go wrong with Palau in February and will have no regrets. Even if you later find you like Cocos better or 10 or 20 other places in the world (and I'd love to have that list if you can make one up!) you won't ever regret diving Palau because it's definitely unique and special. After two trips, it's still tops of my list for potential repeats, and would be my next "big trip" destination whenever that might be if it weren't for the fact I haven't visited Fiji yet and there are still parts of Indonesia I'd like to tap.

As you're coming from Hawaii and hence Palau may be far less of a PITA to get to than Cocos and the rest of the diving world is already jealous of you for that, it should be a no brainer. Do it!

 

[NJScubaDoc]

I went to Cocos back in 2008, and I have to agree with what's been stated before...it's either holy cow in your face or so-so. When we went it was October 2008, as diving during the rainy season is the best time. The visibility was 60ft on average, which is fine by me (i'm used to 5-8 in NJ). As for the action, we got to see just about everything I wanted to see....only regret was the lack of a baitball, but everything else was pretty great. We booked Cocos almost 2 years in advance, and the wait was almost intolerable hehe...I will say though the diving was some of the most challenging I've ever done.

I'm scheduled to hit Chuuk/Palau in 2012...I'm probably more excited for that trip just because of the variety.

 

[ewaiea]

I went to Cocos back in 2008, and I have to agree with what's been stated before...it's either holy cow in your face or so-so. When we went it was October 2008, as diving during the rainy season is the best time. The visibility was 60ft on average, which is fine by me (i'm used to 5-8 in NJ). As for the action, we got to see just about everything I wanted to see....only regret was the lack of a baitball, but everything else was pretty great. We booked Cocos almost 2 years in advance, and the wait was almost intolerable hehe...I will say though the diving was some of the most challenging I've ever done.

I'm scheduled to hit Chuuk/Palau in 2012...I'm probably more excited for that trip just because of the variety.

Thanks for the input - I really do appreciate it. Eventually I will have hit both places, I intend on going to Palau but it's looking like probably next August or September - I hope they don't have a ton of hurricanes in Palau - I don't seem to hear about many. I think 2012 will be my Cocos Island trip.