Chuuk, Palau, & Yap by Shep

Chuuk, Palau, & Yap, 1999
Author: Shep Griswold

Chuuk Palau Yap

Chuuk was our first stop ... what an interesting place! interesting and sad that is

The Hotel we stayed in was called the Truk Continental and it was sold last year to the family that owns the dive shop near the hotel (a famous character Kimo (Kimiuo Aisek) used to own it, and now his family does as he has passed on). The dive shop is called Blue Lagoon and now the hotel is also called that. Blue Lagoon was physically pretty rough ... I'll let it all out here to start but be aware that I would go back in a second and that renovations were taking place while we were there, and they may improve on many of these rough edges to follow:

1) Power was in and out all the time (clock in room has message on it warning you to take caution about it's accuracy) 2) water is undrinkable in the room, and hot water was in short supply 3) Air conditioning was so weak that it was useless 4) Room stank like mildew (lots of dive resorts have this problem :0) 5) Bathroom was very small and dark

Dining Room: They had good food and plenty of it ... I tend to eat alot when I'm diving and I never went hungry. They did have the tendency to get overwhelmed sometimes though. When the Aggressor people came through one evening we (all of us) waited 2-3 hours to eat because they were to short handed. After that happened they always had a buffet (breakfast and dinner) set up and if we were in a hurry we could go and zip through there ...

Bar: Great bar right next to the dock where you get off the boats from diving. Mary runs the place and she does a great job. We did drink them out of these things while we were there : We drank all of their Mai Tai mix, killed (ran them out of)all their vodka, and rum and on another night killed the last of their triple sect. This can happen to you ! They apparently don't resupply all that often. BTW they think Budweiser is the best beer there is .... everyone drinks Bud here

People: The people that were running the place were really great ! We really enjoyed everyone from divemasters to wait staff and maids ... they were all really terrific.

My first sentence says interesting AND sad ... the island is the rest of the story about the land side of this place called Chuuk. The island that the Hotel is on is called Weno (old name Moen) and is pretty impoverished ... people are EVERYWHERE and they have little to do ... drinking is the biggest source of crime related violence here. We were told many times that we should not go out of the hotel grounds at night ... in fact we were discouraged from jogging outside the grounds at any time. As a visitor here you will feel like a fish in a fishbowl ... looking out at things from your bus but having more people looking in at you . We also visited the Xavier High school, which uses the old Japanese communication center building, a tour of that was really interesting and encouraging ... and I understand that this school is one of the best in all of Micronesia.

Diving: The diving here is incredible! Wrecks are so numerous that to dive all of them would take many 2 week trips. To many for me to even have dented ... we did dive many of them over the 5 days of diving though, many of the dives were deep, and that made it hard to do more than 2-3 dives a day. The dive operation had no gas other than air and they have al80's as the only size tank available. I've heard that the Aggressor has Nitrox here but unless they are using the newer membrane technology they would have a real hard time getting 02 in to this area. It would have to come by ship and there just aren't that many of those. I wish we had been given a chance to dive the reefs near here as well because I know that they are really nice ... but 99% of the people that come here come for the wrecks so we saw little of the reefs.

Dives that we did: Visibility 100+ water temp 82f

Shinkoku Maru 83 feet 31 minutes Covered in soft coral Fujikawa Maru 85 ft 45mins zeros in hold Yamagiri Maru 93 ft 43 mins Kansho Maru 95 37 mins Heian Maru 91 ft 46 mins major problems with dive computer reads 68 at 98 feet ...start to use backup computer Rio de Janeiro 74 ft 51 mins (best wreck for life and visibility) schools of Jacks, sharks, remora's good penetration Sankisan Maru 72 ft 47 min trucks machine guns ....lots of ammo Betty bomber off Eten Island 68 ft 54 mins Shinkoku Maru 95 ft 51 mins lots of clown fish Kiyozumi Maru 86ft 56 mins swim through torpedo hole at about 80 feet found octopus, goat fish lanterns and gas masks Shinkoku Maru (Night dive) 72 ft 54 min stone fish great soft coral Fuikawa Maru 102ft 52 mins Gosae Maru 98 ft 50 mins eagle ray .... stern is very shallow

Some of our group also dove the Nippo Maru My dive master was Nik and boat operator was Keeran. Nik has been doing this for 9 years and he spoke english better than the other guides .... I'd ask for him again. He also seemed to be the leader most of the time when we were discussing options for dives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------

Palau: what a change from Chuuk !

First Impressions: Much more pride in the front yard, more international, cleaner.

http://www.panpac.com/micronesia/republic_of_palau/resorts/resort.html

The Hotel: The Palau Pacific Resort (PPR) is legendary in it's care for guests, we were not disappointed ! We had one couple in our group getting married here and the PPR staff went all out in their quest for a great and memorable wedding. More on that later

1) rooms were great,clean, AC that works well, clean water 2) Food ROCKS ! Buffet every morning and evening. They have some kind of show every night as well,usually with kids and very fun 3) Location: they have their own beach, and you can't see anything else around them 4) Bar was down by the beach or in the lobby ... they did not run out of anything, although we tried :)

The wedding was really fun, we walked out barefoot to a area off to the side of the resort. The local supreme court justice was the one who performed the ceremony. When they were announced "man and wife" they turned around to see all 24 of us wearing Groucho Marx glasses and noses that I had brought from the states. It went downhill after that ! we ate a huge meal in the private dining room where we were very obnoxious and noisy as the drinks flowed.... after dinner we moved to the bar. Then further into the evening we all ended up skinny dipping on the beach. As people went to the bar (for fresh supplies) we kept hearing other patrons saying "who are those people ?" One of our group was running up on to the beach (naked) to get a beer and scared the lady (bride) giving it to him... so she tossed it and it clocked him right in the forehead. bummer of a birthmark, dude...

This place is really nice and I hope to come back to stay with them sometime, soon.

Diving: Since we are from the US state of Washington we were set up with an ex-resident of this state, Sam. Sam runs Sam's Diving. He's been running this business for over 8 years now. We did not use Splash which is at the hotel PPR. I for one was glad that we didn't, Splash's boat were big and full of Japanese the few times that I saw it actually go out, I don't think that they can come close to the speeds that Sam's smaller faster boats can go. Since the dive spots are far away this is a very important feature to take into consideration.

Diving: Divemasters Fern, Matthew, and Jonas water temp 30c 86f visibility mostly 60 plus feet

Palau Blue corner Fern wall 107 feet 52 mins using reef hooks, sharks , schools of barracuda's Blue holes 95 feet 61 mins nice swim through,lobster, scorpion fish Blue corner 80 feet 65 mins schools of black cod, lots of sharks,turtles, saw an eagle ray Blue corner 69 ft 66 mins same as above Saias wall 115 feet 63 mins Giant clams,sharks getting cleaned,cornet fish,lots of clown fish square spotted Anthias Saias wall 91 feet 54 mins blue gill trigger fish,moray,trumpet fish, nice nudis,golden trevally Pelelui wall 104 feet 66 mins Tiger Cowry, incredible coral best environment I've seen here yet Peleliu corner 70 feet 61 mins giant clams,6 foot black tuna,turtles,sea snake,lots of sweetlips we did the tour of this island for our surface interval, don't miss it ! It was emotional and very informative Chandelier cave night dive 49 feet 37 minutes great dive ! I can't wait for them to find more of these caves German channel 83 feet 60 mins lots of sharks some rays and turtles Little and big drop off 93 feet 54mins shark show !

Matthew the dive master has a nasty habit of bringing his camera and hogging subjects to the point of annoying the people he's being paid to escort that also brought cameras. Other than that the DM's were good. The boat rides are a real hoot here ... if you can get Poker as a driver you will not be disappointed in the extent of his local knowledge.... he's lived there all his life. If you ever see the picture of the arch that is a very famous part of the rock islands, remember that Poker likes to take people through it at 45 miles an hour (how it fits I don't know!) this can only be done at a very high tide.

One last note ... the reefs at Blue corner have been mauled to death. Between bleaching and Japanese laying all over the coral there is little left alive at the corner itself. Before you condemn me for putting all Japanese in a negative category here, let me explain. On 2 occasions while I was on the reef I saw a group of Japanese swim in front of us while we were using our reef hooks. In both cases the dive master signaled to the group to rise up over the wall and making a grabbing sign told them to grab on with their hands. After they had grabbed on behind and to the left of me they proceeded to let air OUT of their BC's and lay right down on the coral. Then while some of the best sights that divers will ever see paraded in front of them they proceeded to take pictures of themselves instead of the sharks and cuda going by. I asked around too, they are given these gloves so that they can grab on like this. These operations that cater to the Japanese, cater ONLY to Japanese and they need to start training them on conservation methods ... NOW ! I am now off my soapbox ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------

Last stop Yap Manta Ray Bay Hotel http://www.mantaray.com

Plane was 12 hours late from Manilla so we arrived at 4 AM, they were ready for us though !

I think that this is the most perfect dive destination I've been to, ever.

Hotel: Basic but large rooms, clean, AC if you need it. Some of our folks said they had a hard time getting hot water

Food: They stole chef Bill Munn from the above mentioned PPR in Palau and the result is that the food here is FANTASTIC ! He buys the fish right from the local boats, so the fish specials are always really great! I think his wife is a local baker as well but the banana bread and other baked goods were always really fresh and yummy.

Bar: they have a small bar that stayed open as late as we did but we went down the street a few times to places called "O'keefes " and the "Marina". the Marina bar had the best music while we were there ... it was also where the local Peace corps gals hung out.

Dives : water temps 84f Visibility 60 feet except around the Ray cleaning stations where it was usually less than 30 feet

Lion Fish Wall 84 ft 63 mins 3 Lionfish and a really nice wall continued into Yap Caverns Gilman Wall 76 ft 56 mins 4 Lionfish , sharks Manta Ray Ridge 70 ft 70 mins schools of baby sharks,and jacks no rays Manta ray Ridge 63 min 63 feet 2 large Manta Rays Little Williams Night dive saw over 12 Lionfish (lost Count !)lots of nudis, coral shrimp great dive Sacura Ray Reef 75 ft 63 mins hard coral like you might see in a dream ... incredible and dream like Manta Ray Ridge 72 ft 63 mins 3 mantas

Our dive guide the first day was Patricia, we also used Yap, and Sam. Yap's from Holland and Sam is an Aussie Patricia is the wife of the owner (Bill Acker). She was especially good ... great diver and DM and if you get a chance take the Kayak tour that she leads ... it was one of my best experiences on Yap. The diving here is much better than I was lead to believe by previous postings and info from dejanews and Ben Davidson's Chap book. I wish I had spent a week here. Bill Acker told me that he gets some customers that are pissed when they are brought out to Sacura reef ... because you won't see big animals there ... but so many of our party were moved by the beauty that the hard coral reef gave us, that it remains a lasting memory as one of the most beautiful and healthy reefs that I will ever see in my lifetime.

Questions ? e-mail me

Shep Griswold
Kirkland,Wa,USA
grizzy@nwlink.com