Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Tell us your tale of coming nose-to-nose with a 6 gill [--this big--], or about your vacation to turquoise warm waters. Share your adventures here!
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jmartel
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Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by jmartel »

Continuing on with the theme of everyone else going on vacation at the same time, I went to Palau and Peleliu with my wife and our other normal dive buddy. The trip was run by Ocean Enterprises out of San Diego, who we have done 2 other dive trips with and got certified with. They always put on a good trip and make sure it's full of lots of good people. In total it was 9 days of diving (5 days in Palau, 4 days in Peleliu), with a total of 30 dives for me. Wish I could have stayed another week.

Diving out of Koror, Palau was as you'd expect for a little pacific island. The hotel we stayed at (West Plaza Hotel by the Sea) was old, but clean. Food at the hotel was actually quite good, and pretty reasonably priced. The dive shop we used was Fish'n'fins, and they'd pick us up from the hotel and drop us off every day. As we were land based, trips out to the dive sites were done in small speedboats, and could take up to an hour each way. Luckily it's a pretty scenic boat ride, so it wasn't so bad.

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One of Paul Allen's boats, Octopus, was down there as well. Always nice to see how other people live.

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The schedule was typically 2 dives in the morning, followed by lunch either drifting in in the boat or pulling up to a beach, and then another dive before heading back into town.

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Water temps were 82-85 deg consistently, which was a welcome change from the sound. Koror, Palau was a busy town, but once we transferred down to Peleliu it was a completely different atmosphere. Only about 600 people live on the island, so it was very secluded. Unfortunately, that also means no Nitrox, so it was a constant battle of fighting off no-deco times. All in all, it was a great trip and I'd highly recommend it.

And now for the underwater photos that I was able to get. Palau is known for being a wide angle site with big animals, but I found that the macro there was at least as good:

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ScubaJess
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by ScubaJess »

wow beautiful shots!! Now it's on my list also. :)
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Tom Nic
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by Tom Nic »

Wow wow wow.... You world travelers are absolutely bringing it! Amazing fotos!

Thanks for telling the story here!
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Scubie Doo
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by Scubie Doo »

Oh boy, awesome shots.


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Vjw
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by Vjw »

Gorgeous pictures and sounds like an epic trip!!
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theonly_JT
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by theonly_JT »

My goodness that is beautiful!!!! That first WA shot is amazinggg!! I screen saver quality if you ask me. Thanks for the great report. Like Scuba Jess said This is now on my must dive list... list is getting pretty long now
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jmartel
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by jmartel »

Thanks guys. JT, I'd highly suggest going. This was my 2nd favorite trip now. If I didn't have so many other places on my list, I'd probably plan to go back. It's certainly nice diving in a 3mm shorty instead of a drysuit, of course.

Although I gotta say my least favorite sites there were some of the most "famous" ones like Blue Corner and Peleliu Express. Hooking in is just kinda boring to me, to be honest. Much rather spend more time around some of the coral gardens or on wall dives.

One thing I forgot to mention was that we saw a thresher shark just after dropping down on one of the Peleliu express dives, which was completely unexpected. The dive guide said he had never seen one before. unfortunately it was about 40 feet below us and going away so no photos. I chased down to about 90 feet before I gave up.
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stphnmartin
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by stphnmartin »

Sweet pics! Love the mandarin fish. What was your average depth? I've heard the dives there are on the deep side.
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jmartel
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by jmartel »

A lot of them were deeper, yes. Deepest dive was 111 feet. Shallowest was the mandarinfish which was an hour and a half at about 3 feet. Most of the wall dives you could go as deep as you want/nitrox mix would allow, and the top of the wall was in the 40ft range. Virgin Hole and Blue holes required going deep before coming out at the bottom and going into a wall dive. Most of the time I spent in the 60-90 foot range.

Wasn't much of an issue until we did the Peleliu section which doesn't have Nitrox. Everyone was bouncing off the no deco limits constantly there.
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Gdog
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Re: Palau & Peleliu Feb 2018

Post by Gdog »

Man that is awesome! Wow. I wanna go!! Great shots!!
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