Palau or PNG

[vladimir]

I had feared that Sipadan's best days are behind it, I hope Layang is better.

It's been a while for me--I dove Sipadan in 1995 and Layang-layang in 1996, if I recall correctly. Back then, while they were both beautiful sites, Sipadan was a class above. We had schooling hammerheads at both places, but they were 180 feet deep at Layang, 70-ish at Sipadan. Both sites also had large schools of jacks and barracuda. Layang had a decent turtle presence, but Sipadan had hundreds of them. You got tired of looking at them. Beyond those similarities, Sipadan had endless fish of all types, lots of whitetip reef sharks, and a huge diversity of smaller creatures. Layang was harder to get to back then. They took the same number of divers (~25) then, but I think Sipadan has suffered quite a bit from its popularity. I'd bet Layang has aged a lot better than Sipadan. I will be interested to read a more modern comparison.

 

[vladimir]

Definately when you come into PNg spend a couple of days at Loloata

Is Dik Knight still the proprietor there?

 

[Wayan]

Is Dik Knight still the proprietor there?

Yes still there, A part of the furniture

 

[caymaniac]

My wife and I had dinner with Dik and a number of other resort owners. It was very good, also I remember that we had an appetizer of scrolled sweet potatos fried like chips...they were great.

 

[tazzmeyer]

Just a quick note to the OP - I also have issues with being seasick/motionsick. I wear SeaBands on my wrist while on LOB and diving and I have never had an issue with being sick when I had them on. If you're in the States, you should be able to find them at your drugstore (I have found them at Eckerds, Wallgreens and Drugstore.com). They are not the most attractive things in the world and they are not cheap ($10/pair) but I wouldn't be able to dive without them. I have tried Dramamine (makes me sleepy) and Ginger (doesn't help me at all) but I like the bands the best.

Good luck!

PS - just returned from a trip to Palau....WOW. We didn't do a LOB - we stayed at Caroline's and dove with Sam's. Our DM (Jim) was fantastic and really made sure we didn't miss anything....although we had "no shows" at the German Channel twice - (the manta's were scarce) but I think it was because that we get out there so late...it sounds like the peeps on LOB's got the best shows.