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Republic of Palau on the Sun Dancer II |
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Overview This was a 10 day trip on the Sun Dancer II. The Sun Dancer II is one of the newer boats in the Peter Hughes fleet and it certainly reflects well on the operation as a whole. Captained by Monterey alumnus Alan Cull our group found the boat and crew to be excellent. The diving was great too. About the only negative was the overall crowding of the dive sites. Put simply there are too many divers in too few spots in Palau but that didn't detract from things that much and the trip was well worth the time and expense. The Crew As mentioned above our captain for this trip was somebody we already knew; Alan Cull. Alan ran the Pacific Star in Monterey for four years before taking the helm of the Sun Dancer. The worked out well for us as we already had a relationship with him before we even boarded the boat. Ours was a mostly experienced and gung-ho group and it was great that we didn't have to waste time justifying our requests for big dives. Alan was friendly and informative and seemed to have an excellent rapport with the rest of the crew. Besides Alan the most important member of the crew was Yanis our cook. Yanis served up all sorts of amazing dishes and you never got out of the water without there being something yummy to eat. Don't plan a trip on this boat if you're on a diet. Vegetarian dishes were available if you asked. The food was mostly american style dishes but we discovered that there was always rice available if you asked. Several folks used this and other insider information to set themselves up with more asian cuisine. Hostesses Lyn and Rowena kept things tidy, served food and otherwise looked after us. The Sun Dancer II features no fewer than 5 divemasters who rotate between various jobs during the day. Divemaster duties included guiding dives (like herding cats for our group), driving the chase boats, filling tanks, etc. On our cruise we had Dave, Jill, Carlo, Bhoyet and Kendyll. All were superb. Dave and Carlo had photo pro duties. Mostly this meant they took pictures and video of the passengers though they may have been available for consulting too. We wouldn't know as the photo types on our group were all far too, uuuh, cocky to stoop to asking for help! :-) Dave's video was available for about $50 at the end of the trip and all passangers got several good slides of themselves both topside and underwater. There were a couple of times when I might have preferred that Dave or Carlo get out of the way to allow me to get my shot but overall the picture taking service was unobtrusive and the video and slides were nice. Engineer Mario mostly stayed out of sight but must be doing a good job as nothing seemed broken or problematic.
The Boat The Sun Dancer II was originally a large party fishing boat. Peter Hughes bought it somewhere in 1996 or 1997 and gutted it down to the waterline. About the only things left from the original boat were the engines and the hull. The result is a boat that feels quite new. Pictures of the boat make it look like a space craft or maybe a really spiffy luxury yacht but in person its workboat heritage shows and that's not a bad thing. The stern of the boat features a large dive deck with 4 rinse tanks, lots of space for cameras and chargers and warm water showers for rinsing off after a dive. Forward from the dive deck is a long hallway from which most of the staterooms are arranged. The staterooms were large, well ventilated and clean and had nice picture windows for enjoying the beautiful Palauan scenery. Nice as they were, though, I preferred to spend my time elsewhere on the boat to maximize my time outdoors. Ascending to the second deck the boat features a small wet bar and a dive briefing area directly above the dive deck. This area is semi-enclosed but does give the feeling of being outdoors. Forward you'll find the large salon where meals were served. I might have preferred outdoor dining but the salon was very nice and not unlike an upscale restaurant. The salon also featured a nice TV for watching underwater and Wallace and Gromit videos. Forward from the salon was the wheelhouse which Alan generously allowed us to hang out in when we weren't diving. We had two dive boat captains and a chief engineer among our group so naturally we liked to be in the wheelhouse. The top deck was a sun deck with hammocks, lounge chairs and the like. About half of the sun deck was covered which was a good thing for those of us who burn easily in the sun. Diving Operations Diving was done exclusively from two 26 foot chase boats called the Magic Bus and the Magic Tram. These look sort of like inflatables when seen in pictures but they are actually rigid hull boats with foam fenders built into their sides. The boats are powered by large diesel engines fitted with jet drives. The jet dives make the boats safer when operated in the vicinity of divers. Both boats can really fly. Trips to and from the dive sites were half the fun. The chase boats had nice benches and tank racks with space for stowing all of your gear. Once you put your BC on a tank it stayed there until the end of the trip. Air and Nitrox were filled via whips from the big boat. This is very convenient. The crew was amazingly tolerant of our aggressive diving style. My friend Dave's first question was "Do you mind if I knock the valves off of a couple of tanks to manifold together a set of doubles?" They barely batted an eye and quickly went looking for a wrench to help with valve removal. In fact the only rule they enforced was to limit dives to 60 minutes or less which helped us maintain our dive schedule. Rules mentioned on the Peter Hughes website like "Dive nitrox to air tables" weren't even mentioned. We were told that as certified divers it was our responsibility to look after our own safety. This was very much appreciated. Dives which had non-obvious hazards were carefully explained in the dive briefings such that we could make informed decisions about our profiles. One relatively minor annoyance was that they tended to send both chase boats to the same sites. Some of this probably had to do with negotiated efforts to avoid other dive boats and some of it was certainly an attempt to put divers in the right place at the right time with respect to the tides. Still, we had twenty divers in our group and twenty divers in one place is at least ten too many. On occasion we did find ourselves surrounded by divers from other operations. This was particularly bad at German Channel and New Drop Off. Looking at a map of Palau it is clear that most of the good wall dives are in a very small area in the south end of the country which, I'm sure, makes life tricky for the many, many operators working this area. Diving from a liveaboard really enabled us to do a lot more dives than we would have otherwise. A ten day trip works out to eight and a half days of diving and in that time thirty eight dives were offered, not counting Jellyfish Lake. This kind of pace would be nearly impossible to maintain if you were making the long run from the city of Koror every day. The Diving Diving in Palau was generally very good to excellent. Visibility was typically in the 70 to 100 foot range depending on the tides. Many of the dive sites featured sheer walls starting near the surface and extending down much further than even our psycho group wished to venture. The walls were covered with very impressive gorgonian sea fans and soft corals. More gently sloping areas featured nice hard corals. The hard corals weren't as badly damaged by the El Nino warming event as I had feared but it was obvious that many of the large Acropora plate corals had suffered pretty severely. Other coral species seemed more or less undamaged. Fish life was abundant though people in our group that had previously visited Palau said that it seem somewhat reduced. Turtles were abundant as were grey and whitetip reef sharks. The world famous jellyfish lake has clearly recovered from the El Nino and I'm happy to report that the jellyfish were thick as soup. Here are some of my favorite dives in Palau; Blue Corner: This is the site for which Palau may be most famous and it didn't disappoint. Blue corner is a plateau with a corner that sticks out into the tidal current. Sheer walls on both sides of the corner drop into the abyss. The current hits the wall and flows up til it reaches the top at about 50 feet wherupon it flows out onto the plateau. The current can be quite strong and brings in lots of pelagics like sharks, barracudas and tunas. Diving usually involves physically attaching yourself to the top of the wall with a line called a reef hook. This is a large shark hook with maybe 10 feet of line and a gate snap. You place the hook on a patch of dead reef, attach the other end to your harness and "fly" in the current. This allows an effortless view of the endless parade of grey reef sharks and other intersting fish swimming just off the edge of the wall. We also saw lots of large grouper here, whitetip reef sharks, eagle rays and big schools of jacks. Perhaps best of all were the large, friendly napolean wrasse. The coral garden on the back side of the plateau was also very nice though the front edge where the current was looked as if it had been sandblasted free of life. Blue Holes: This site features several sink holes in the top of the reef which open into a large cave. The cave, in turn, opens out onto the side of very picturesque wall. This spot didn't have the pelagic action of Blue Corner but it was very pretty. Fern's Wall: Another wall dive. This wall had some of the best gorgonians to be found in Palau and also a large population of hawksbill turtles. Deeper areas on the wall featured large numbers of sqarespot anthias. Peleliu School: This was the best of the "coral garden" dives we did in Palau. The hard corals here were very healthy and there was an amazing abundance of giant clams. We also saw a lot of turtles here. Peleliu Cut: We didn't quite get this dive with the right tide and didn't have the current for which it is known. Similar in topography to Blue Corner the lack of coral growing on the top of the plateau is testament to the really strong currents which are frequently present here. The yellow soft corals on the walls are amazing but we didn't get the pelagic action we were hoping for. I suspect this was a random thing though and I'd like to dive it again. Right as our dive was ending the current was starting to pick up and the sharks were starting to approach the wall. Maybe next time. Mandarin Fish Lake: This is actually a shallow bay. The maximum depth is no more than 40 feet and I don't think I got anywhere near that deep. The action is in 15 feet of water in some coral rubble. At dusk the amazingly pretty and difficult to photograph mandarin fish start to come out to feed and to spawn. Photographer types may find this one of the highlights of the trip. Jellyfish Lake: This is another very famous spot and justifiably so. It is a small brackish lake in the center of one of the rock islands. A short hike up and over is required to visit and once there it's a snorkel only affair. The lake is full of absolutely unique jellyfish found nowhere else. A species of Mastigias jellyfish has evolved to live in the lake. The jellies contain zooxanthelle (sybiotic algae) and get all of their energy from sunlight. Having no predators they have lost their ability to sting. Endemic moon jellies are also found here but the Mastigias jellies steal the show. In places they are so thick that you can't see more than 5 feet in any direction and yet the water is very clear. This spot has to be seen to be believed and is not to be missed. Logistics Palau isn't exactly next door but it isn't Papua New Guinea either. Direct flights from Continental hub Guam allow for relatively easy flight itineraries. Our group flew from LA to Honolulu to Guam and then to on to Palau. We were able to get there in one day. The Sun Dancer II isn't cheap but since you get up to 5 dives a day I think it is worth it compared to staying at a land based resort. Palau is relatively modern country and the city of Koror is worth exploring a bit and while it is hardly a center of culture there are some nice restaurants and a couple of worthwhile museums. We also did a side trip to Peleliu for a tour of the WWII battle sites. This was worthwhile for history buffs but hard core divers might be better off staying on the boat and going diving. This was a fun trip made more so by virtue of the fact that I already knew many of the people I was travelling with. I can certainly recommend both Palau and the Sun Dancer II without hesitation. Palau doesn't quite offer the adrenaline rush of Cocos or the incredible beauty of British Columbia but it does strike a good balance. My only caveat would be that divers with an aversion to seeing other divers underwater might find Palau a bit crowded. Palau Photo Gallery Happy Diving, Clinton |