Palau: Land based or liveaboard?

[GoProHonduras]

I've ran a search on this forum but couldn't find much in the way of comparisons of a weeks land based diving (thinking Sam tours) versus a weeks live-aboard diving.

We're coming from the US, probably May/June, so bearing in mind it's a significant distance and cost, is it more worthwhile to go liveaboard and do we get that much greater access to sites that aren't accessible if based from a resort?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Cali_diver]

liveaboard unless you don't mind long rough boat rides home.... My butt still hurts from that ride and I only did it once!!

 

[Damselfish]

It's not a question of what sites you can get to as much as how many times you get to dive them. Many of the famous sites are a longish (though pretty) ride, so you can get more dives in if you're on a liveaboard and just stay out there instead of heading back to Koror every day. Boat trip with Sam's is pretty much an all day undertaking and I don't know if that's 2 tanks or 3, but it's certainly not 4 or 5. Sam's seemed like a good outfit (we didn't dive with them but did one of their kayak trips which was great, and hung out there for awhile.)

 

[scjoe]

I went with Sams and enjoyed it. My recollection is that the rides were 45 minutes to an hour depending on where they were headed and the weather. For the most part they were very smooth and the scenery is outstanding. They can get bumpy (and wet and cold) if the weather kicks up. Bring a rain jacket and light sweater just in case. I would not call any of the rides rough, but depending on weather you can have a rough ride on any boat on any given day.

If you don't care about being able to stretch your legs on dry land, eat at various restaurants and tour the islands, then the liveaboard option is the way to go assuming the price differential is acceptable. Also, if you want to dive the Pelilieu Express, you should do a liveaboard. There is no guarantee that the land based operators will get out there if the weather conditions aren't right. They do hit all the other sites though.

Either way, the diving is great.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Recommend for you and five of your closest dive buddies:

Ocean Hunter I - General

Ocean Hunter I can moor directly at the dive sites; all of the other larger Liveaboards usually stay in one place (German Channel), and ferry divers out to the popular sites like Blue Corner via skiff/RIB.

 

[Worldwide Dive and Sail]

Hi GoProHonduras,
Palau can be dove from a land based dive shop or a liveaboard. All depends if you want to dive 2 or 3 dives per day or 3 or 4 dives per day. If you choose a liveaboard, you will be more likely to dive Peleliu (in most of the dive shops, they put you on a waiting list before diving Peleliu). Moreover, liveaboards are more flexible on their schedule and if one of the dive sites is already full, another one is normally chosen.

 

[GoProHonduras]

Thanks everyone, it makes sense if we're traveling all that distance to dive as often as possible so live-aboard seems the way forward. We had looked into Siren fleet as we've hears so many good things about the boat/crew and they support rebreathers but they don;t have anything on our dates, Aggressor don't support rebreathers, so could be booking with OceanHunter III, anyone dived with them and if so would you go again?

 

[Scubagolf]

Liveaboard. We were on the Palau Siren in April of 2013. Great boat, great crew on our trip, and terrific diving + WW II topside excursion.

 

[jake11]

We did our Palau trip land based. We dove with Sam's Tours and they were awesome! We stayed for 1 week at Palau Pacific Resort and LOVED it there! Our other week was at Sea Passions and it was fine but not as nice as PPR. We did that long boat ride every day for 12 days. Only one day was rough . The ride out and back is simply gorgeous and went by very quickly. We saw the LOB's every day while out there so they do go to a lot of the same sites.
We usually do LOB's but when we go back to Palau we will stay at PPR again and dive with Sam's tours again. We got a lot of dives in because we always did their shore dive as soon as we came back in. It was fabulous! Have a great time as it is a stellar location!