Palau: Liveaboard decisions? Compared to shore-based? Help?

[jfcl01]

Two thoughts:
1. Seems like you are tormenting yourself needlessly about some of the money details. The trip you've described so far-whether or not you do LOB vs. land based in Palau-sounds like it will run well in excess of 12k per person...maybe closer to 15K? More? So does it matter if you calculate that you'll spend 10-15$ more per meal if you do it one way instead of the other? This is an absurdly expensive trip (I know..I know...but I've done it 4 times myself)-accept that fact, and base your decisions on your feelings, your passions about how you want it to go. You're going to get gouged financially no matter what you choose (what a "terrible" dilemma to have)...and you will come back feeling super grateful that you went, and it wont matter that you sort of suspect that maybe you could have done it a different way and saved 50$ or 25$ here and there
2. If you go land based...or even if you go primarily LOB but do a couple days of land based diving...I strongly recommend that you get a neoprene dive jacket for the boat. Those are some mighty long boat rides back to Koror, and when it's rough...it's wild and very cold. The rides to/from Cozumel dive sites, for example, pale in comparison the the rides in Palau. I can do the Cozumel rides in cool weather with a fleece and windbreaker...I would have frozen doing that in Palau on some of the windy/rainy days.
There are several brands available, I have a couple of the Hyperflex neoprene jackets (think I got it off Leisure pro, or Amazon...I dont recall). I can send you the link if you want...I try to avoid posting links for specific products

 

[flybigjet]

Two thoughts:
1. Seems like you are tormenting yourself needlessly about some of the money details. The trip you've described so far-whether or not you do LOB vs. land based in Palau-sounds like it will run well in excess of 12k per person...maybe closer to 15K? More? So does it matter if you calculate that you'll spend 10-15$ more per meal if you do it one way instead of the other? This is an absurdly expensive trip (I know..I know...but I've done it 4 times myself)-accept that fact, and base your decisions on your feelings, your passions about how you want it to go. You're going to get gouged financially no matter what you choose (what a "terrible" dilemma to have)...and you will come back feeling super grateful that you went, and it wont matter that you sort of suspect that maybe you could have done it a different way and saved 50$ or 25$ here and there
2. If you go land based...or even if you go primarily LOB but do a couple days of land based diving...I strongly recommend that you get a neoprene dive jacket for the boat. Those are some mighty long boat rides back to Koror, and when it's rough...it's wild and very cold. The rides to/from Cozumel dive sites, for example, pale in comparison the the rides in Palau. I can do the Cozumel rides in cool weather with a fleece and windbreaker...I would have frozen doing that in Palau on some of the windy/rainy days.
There are several brands available, I have a couple of the Hyperflex neoprene jackets (think I got it off Leisure pro, or Amazon...I dont recall). I can send you the link if you want...I try to avoid posting links for specific products

True about the cost; my wife calls this a "first world" problem.

That being said, saving a little here and there does add up to "real money" eventually.

My budget at the moment is $18k Denver to Denver for the two of us, but realistically, I'll hit $20k by the time tips and miscellaneous/unforeseen/unexpected are all added in. The biggest advantage in cost that I have is that I won't have to pay for air fare from Denver to Narita to Guam and return and I get a reasonable discount on the island hopper flights.

But, like my wife keeps telling me-- you only go around once, and I've been wanting to do this trip for at least 20 years, if not more-- I'm just normally a financially prudent person, so something like this is a bit..... disconcerting.

Funnily enough, I've spent the last few days cleaning out my office at home-- I literally haven't touched some of the stuff in there in over a decade. And I found a bunch of articles on Truk that I'd torn out of the Guam paper a looooong time ago- if nothing else, it was proof to my wife that I've been wanting to do this for a very long time.

So, now I just need to figure out hotels, kayak trips, peleliu, etc. But the major hurdles (i.e. the two boats) are done.

And yes, please send me links to those jackets-- we've got a lot of bike/hike/ski/camp gear in the basement, but it would be good to see what you're recommending and see what I have that will work.

Cheers--

R.

 

[jfcl01]

Sent PM

 

[billt4sf]

We had "cabin #8", one of the two "master staterooms" on the top deck. We only got a very quick peek into a couple other rooms. Ours were one of the most expensive rooms (top deck - see the boat plans on their website), are larger, have 2 reasonable-sized windows, a small corner "sofa" (we used it as a place to heap our gear), a little desk/stool, and - an extra perk - a separate door out to the top deck - this made it quick and easy to pop in/out of the room even if wet or in a wetsuit if we had forgotten an item before a dive (which happened often) - it also gave us our own semi-private place to hang out clothes to dry (bathing suits, t-shirts, etc. - were clothes-pinned to the railing right outside our door, very handy). The room was fairly spacious (for a dive boat), the bathroom was adequate (water pressure in the shower was just OK, toilet worked flawlessly). There were not an excess of 110 volt outlets in the room (there were a mix of 110 and 220 outlets) - I brought a couple of mini power-strips and was glad I did (between batteries for our dive lights, cameras, iOS devices, etc., we were constantly charging things and needed the extra outlets the mini-power-strips provided). The aircon was powerful and worked well (and I like things "meat locker" cool). The bed in our room was not exactly what I'd call "king size" (borderline "queen size" actually) but was perfectly comfortable for (even a spoiled) couple. The mattress was a bit firm for my tastes but wasn't an issue.

The rooms downstairs looked fine when we took an (admittedly very quick) peek. We decided to spring for the top rooms for several reasons, including the fact that my wife is highly prone to motion sickness, and I figured having two good windows and an external door we could open to let in some fresh air would be nice. She had no troubles with motion sickness - the boat never crossed open water with heavy seas, it's pretty much like being moored on a lake - but we did like having the windows, door and extra room. I think the rooms on the lower deck provide less floor area, sloping walls, and (I think) no windows that open, but would expect the bed and bathrooms to be adequate. We were happy with our room (even knowing that it was an extravagance).

On our trip, the boat was only half full (I think we had 8 guests total; I think they take up to 16). The boat seemed spacious with that load. If completely full, the dining area might feel a little crowded (of course, no way to know in advance what their load is). The crew did a good job keeping everyone happy.

I was surprised that there was a night dive offered pretty much every night (one or two exceptions) - on previous live-aboards we've done, night dives were more sporadic. The night dives were great, with some amazing critters. We did note one unexpected annoyance: if you have bright dive lights (like we did), the tiny fish/plankton in the water are so dense, they immediately swarm your light and become annoying - like a bad dream of underwater mosquitos - at first it just amazed me (so much life!) but it became tiresome because at times the clouds of tiny critters became so dense it made the lights almost useless (significantly dimmed) and I spent a lot of my time trying to "shake them off" but they were on the light as soon as I moved it - pretty intense. That said, I would recommend bringing a good, bright light (even on day dives), but you will want to be able to dim the light (not use it at full intensity if it really is bright) to avoid the swarms (feels kinda weird with thousands of teeny things touching your hand as they swarm the light). Do all the night dives you can - there were all sorts of crazy critters (eg: I found a bright yellow nudibranch the size of a basketball...really!).

I'll add that I thought the folks at Fish & Fins took care of things well and were easy to deal with. Email inquiries were always answered promptly. They had someone pick us up at the airport (4 am arrival...) drop us at our motel, pick us up to go to the boat, then drop us at the motel again after the trip, and get us to the airport for our 2 am departure. The side excursions (eg the kayaking day trip) seemed a bit spendy (well, all of it's spendy...) but considering the location and all, no complaints. I would recommend the boat/trip to a friend (NetPromotor score: 10 ).

Let me know if you have any other questions, happy to share. Cheers.

What do "the folks at Fish and Fins" have to do with it? Weren't you on Ocean Hunter III?

 

[Kevrumbo]

What do "the folks at Fish and Fins" have to do with it? Weren't you on Ocean Hunter III?

Fish n' Fins land-based dive-ops also run the Ocean Hunter Liveaboards. . .