Question Palau Diving Base Recommendation

[Franek]

My wife and I will be in Palau in December and January.
We have a question about a dive shop that you have had experience with and can recommend.
We are also curious about your opinions about Black Pearl Liveaboard, we have a preliminary booking, maybe someone has been on this Liveaboard and is able to recommend it.
We will be grateful for the information

 

[Kensei]

I have dove twice with Sam's Tours and they were great. I've heard good things about Fish and Fins.

I'd also recommend Neco Marine which is really close to Sams. They have a great facility and very nice dive boats. This becomes important because the ride out and back to the dive sites is around 40 minutes each way. One day when I was diving with Sams, we were put on a boat borrowed from Neco Marine... it was like being upgraded to business class.

 

[peeweediver]

Our group had a great experience with Fish n Fins last December. Comfortable boats, good crew, good management. One suggestion: My notes say the boat rides were 45-55 minutes each way, longer to Peleliu. It's a beautiful ride...except when it's pouring. When the boat is moving fast and it's raining hard, it comes into you sideways...cold water hitting you hard. It rained 5 of the first 6 dive days on the return ride. Some in the group left their wet suits and mask on and huddled as best as they could. My wife and I had 4th Element water resistant ponchos that were also a bit thick for warmth. We felt like we couldn't have survived without them. At one point I thought others in our group were going to strip us and fight over the ponchos.
Whatever choice as to dive centers, bring something warm and water resistant to wear, just in case.

 

[cozcharlie]

My wife and I will be in Palau in December and January.
We have a question about a dive shop that you have had experience with and can recommend.
We are also curious about your opinions about Black Pearl Liveaboard, we have a preliminary booking, maybe someone has been on this Liveaboard and is able to recommend it.
We will be grateful for the information

There is a fair amount of discussion on dive ops, hotels etc if you search this board. There was a thread involving Black Pearl a few months back.

For land based diving , @Kensei and @peeweediver covered it. Like @Kensei I have used Sam’s Tours multiple times but also have heard good things about Fish N Fins. Neco marine is convenient but I haven’t heard as much about them (I have seen the name forever , but I think they have multiple lines of business and haven’t heard much specifically regarding their diving business). I am not knocking them , I just haven’t heard much. They have a store right next to the drop-off bar and restaurant, which is a big after-dive hangout .

I am assuming you prefer dive ops that cater to Europeans , Americans etc. There used to be other dive ops that catered to Japanese and later Chinese and Taiwanese. I was never really familiar with those ops and I would imagine the pandemic wiped some out.

Not relevant to your question but visitor arrival data by country (or continent) of origin can be found here. Trends are kind of interesting. They started getting swamped by mid-budget Chinese around 2015 and then changed something to reduce the volume of visitors I think (maybe fee increase or visa hurdle? ). All that was pre -Covid and then you layered Covid so numbers are drastically different than 5-6 years ago

[Visitor Arrivals – PalauGov.pw]

 

[Franek]

Thank you very much for the information about the Diving Bases.

We analyzed and received price offers from: Fish and Fins, Palau Dive Adventures.
We will also check Neco Marine and Sam's Tours recommended by our colleagues.
We will not comment on the prices, it is Palau after all, so it is expensive and that's it. Maybe it won't be crowded in December and January.

We are wondering from all experience whether it is possible to come today and dive tomorrow? We can't read anywhere how it really is, every base offers booking, it's best to book tomorrow, because there will be no room in December, is this true?

From what we understand and read, it takes +/- 40-55 minutes to the diving site, 2 or 3 descents. Can you tell me how it works in Palau, the boats don't seem very spacious, there is no shortage of space between dives?

As for the Black Pearl, we can't find anything anywhere.


Thank you very much for the hint that it can be cold on the boat when it sails in the rain, Scuba jackets will come in handy.

 

[cozcharlie]

If you go to www.liveaboard.com and do a search for forward dates in Micronesia you will see the Black Pearl listed. There are about 10 reviews there , but I didn’t see dates for each review (generally when looking at reviews I place more weight on the recent reviews )

 

[lermontov]

what were the land based plus hotel and food cost likes compared to the L on B

 

[Franek]

We will be able to provide a cost comparison in January 2024 after we finish our stay in Palau.
At the moment, looking at our price calculations, Liveaboard for 7 nights is comparable to staying in a hotel + 3 divers, staying on land is a lot of components and there are many temptations.

Looking at the prices, Palau is not the most expensive, you can find much more expensive, only the flights from Poland are long and expensive.

One more question, did you book your dives in advance or overnight?

 

[cozcharlie]

We will be able to provide a cost comparison in January 2024 after we finish our stay in Palau.
At the moment, looking at our price calculations, Liveaboard for 7 nights is comparable to staying in a hotel + 3 divers, staying on land is a lot of components and there are many temptations.

Looking at the prices, Palau is not the most expensive, you can find much more expensive, only the flights from Poland are long and expensive.

One more question, did you book your dives in advance or overnight?

I would recommend booking most of your diving in advance. It is probably not necessary the vast majority of the time, but given the time and expense of getting to Palau it is not worth the risk of being unlucky and having dive boats being full when you want to go.

It is probably difficult to predict how busy the island will be at a specific time unless you are a dive shop and can see advance bookings. When I was last there in June 2022 I think Sam’s probably only had 6 divers a day , but a divemaster mentioned that their forward bookings for a couple of months later were for 5-10 times that amount of divers ( I forget exact numbers).

The point is even if dive operators are still relatively slow much of the time , there are probably some weeks/months where they are busy. It is probably not necessary to advance book every dive you might want to do, but book most of your expected dives in advance so you are guaranteed to do the diving you traveled to the other side of the world to experience. Like I said , I think most of the time it wouldn’t be necessary, but the downside to not advance booking and catching a busy week where a large group happens to be in town would be enormous.

 

[lermontov]

try to organise for trip to see the fish spawning - very cool