Palau
PALAU!! Just the name alone conjures up magnificent images in our mind that we all have seen spread throughout the various dive magazines that we have all drooled over. If there is a more hyped up place to dive you will be hard pressed to find it. However, it is justified!
Palau is not necessarily an easy place to get to nor is it a budget travel destination. My wife and I are a military family stationed in Guam so we were on the assumption that the flight cost would be more reasonable from Guam. They are, but only slightly so. If you want to dive and are pining about the cost of the flight, don't, it will not get any cheaper. The only real advantage we have living in Guam is that we fly for a total of 1.5 hours versus, well depending where you are coming from, a lot or a lot more.
No matter where you come from you will be traveling through Guam and will arrive in Palau between later in the day to later in the evening. The downside to this is you have to pay for a hotel day and you have little to no opportunity to enjoy your first hours on Palau. The same applies to your departure date. All flights back to the US through Guam will be leaving between 1am and /or 3am. Therefore, you get to pay for another nights’ stay in your hotel of choice without really enjoying it. This is where the negatives end depending on the dive operator you choose.
My wife and I have visited Palau twice so far and have booked our third trip for this February 2014.
There is nothing like diving In Palau. It is “world class”! Go during high season (February to May or October / November) not peak season (December and January) and you’ll save a few bucks and still get awesome conditions. If you want big pelagics such as huge Dogtooth Tuna, Mantas, massive schools of barracuda and jacks and as many sharks as you care to see, tons of fish, exceptional reef health and awesome drifts Palau is the place. I have dove all over the world with over 3900 dives under my weight belt and the single best dive I have ever had was the Ulong area and the Ulong channel. I can’t even describe it. You are going to have to put a bit of effort in planning your trip to do Ulong channel as you have to hit it on an incoming tide at the time that your boat will be out there. IF you like Mantas go to Yap not German Channel. Better yet, go to the Big Island of Hawaii and save yourself a boatload of money and have some of the most memorable Manta experiences ever. Palau is NOT a dive destination for the newly certified unless you can prove yourself to be a competent and confident diver. The drifts can be fast and the drop-offs substantial. Visibility has always been fantastic and it is easy to get deep fast without realizing it. Take your camera if you have one and if you don’t get one. These days they have very good housed point and shoot cameras that won’t set you back too much and you won’t regret it. All the rest of the spots are absolutely breathtaking with some better than others but all offering a unique taste of the underwater world that is Palau.
