Truk Lagoon - liveaboard or shore baseed?

Patto_chan

Hi all.
I'm finally fulfilling one of my long held diving ambitions and travelling to Truk next December. Will meet up with a friend along the way and the 2 of us plan to do a week's diving there. And we're bringing Inspirations.

Although flights are booked we're still debating over whether to do a liveaboard or shore based holiday.
I've read most of the RBW trip reports but was wondering if anyone has any opinions one way or the other. (e.g. why liveaboard if you go to the dive sites by tender anyway?; why shore based if there's nothing else to do except dive?).

Opinions welcome. Am off to Donegal (Malin Head) NW Ireland for a few days diving so may not be able to respond to PMs until I get back.

/patrick

silentscuba

I made a trip to Truk this year and we were all shore based and everything worked out just fine. I don't know if the live aboards can deal with Rebreather's. We dove a 10/50 mix and did the deeper dives which were very interesting.

I found that with shore based diving , you might have a little more control over what dive sites you might go to and that we were not diving with OC folks.

We did 2 ea 2hr dives per day with typically 4 people to a boat and we were able to give input on where we wanted to dive.

I was very happy with our trip that Ron Benson from Going Under Dive Center put together.

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Curt McNamee
rEvo CCR Diver
KISS CCR Diver
www.silentscuba.com

dive2dive2000

Hi Pattrick,

That is a tough question. It depends a lot on what type of divers you and your mate are. Do you like roughing (and what your definition of roughing it is) it or do you want to relax. Do you have controll of the liveaboard, or are you just filling slots on a boat, and your budget. Has your mate been there before, or is it a first for both of you? The first issue is budget it will be a diffrenece of about $1000usd to $1400usd between liveaboards to land base. If money is not a major issue then your goals and what you are looking for is your next question

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Safe Diving,
Martin

Mixaddict

Having done two liveaboard trips to Truk in the last 2 years, I can highly recomend The Odysey. It is a top notch boat and crew, great food, very open to all types of tech diving and very accomodating. The dive deck is basically open all day long and will let you do up to 5 dives per day. They have O2 on board, and may have scrubber as well. Helium will probably have to be arranged for separately.

Land based in Chuuk, is VERY VERY primative at best. The island looks like an atomic bomb went off, and is not comfortable by most standards. IMHO, I would only consider the liveaboard route, and the Odyssey is definately more tech oriented than the other option.

Just my $.02
Randy

silentscuba

Land based in Chuuk, is VERY VERY primative at best. The island looks like an atomic bomb went off, and is not comfortable by most standards. IMHO, I would only consider the liveaboard route, and the Odyssey is definately more tech oriented than the other option.

Just my $.02
Randy[/quote]

Evidently you did not find the Blue Lagoon Resort, and what island are you talking about, maybe Bikini ?.

Check out this web site.
http://www.bluelagoondiveresort.com

It is the only place to stay in my opinion if you are going to be land based.

The resort is a first class facility with great rooms and dive shop.

The island was very tropical and has alot of history behind it and interesting sites to visit.

__________________
Curt McNamee
rEvo CCR Diver
KISS CCR Diver
www.silentscuba.com

jradomski

while the grounds at BL are nice (the resort is actually built on top of concrete and filled over), most of the rest of the island (and surrounding islands) are primiive and dirty at best.. trash abounds all over the place, roads if present are mostly potholes... on many of the islands you can still see the old ww2 buildings that are bombed out..

Thankfully bugs on the island are not that bad (although its better on the liveaboards)..

If you can't get a boat to yoursef (or group), and aren't doing really long individual dives, you'll get much more bang for the buck from a liveaboard where doig up to 5 dives a day is the norm..

I usualy use the Thorfinn, since the captain can be pretty flexible and will acomdate even individual divers when possible. (plus the new launches are great - 30 ft custom dive launches that can do 35+, fresh water, shower, ect..)

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Joe Radomski
CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer
ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10

All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.

MHD

Blue lagoon is superb. Place is great. comfortable, neat tidy. all the things you want in a third world country. Island is a mess, but it's a third world country.

Little worse than most south pacific islands (have more experienc on that side of the equator).

you will get more dives from liveaboards.

As for choice of dive lcoations, that is a hard one, from BL we got most places, the entire time we where there thorfin ws anchored in site and operated as a fixed platform taking diving to sites via tender (modern RIBS).
so no real advantage to being on a liveaboard

Odessey moved around, but you might end up parked somewhere for half a day, but they do have a tender a well.

BL boat are basic open boats, but yhey are getting some larger new boats ,when we left, the first was there. Personally I like diving from small open boats so no stress, but it you are worried about the lack of coast approved safety equipment, radios, GPS etc, and don't like getting a bit wet if the sea is running agasinst you, don't go there.

I believe their is some redevelopment work at the truk stop happening, but can't say what effect it will have. and whether it was in the accommodation section.


Matt

jradomski

Matt,

When were you on the Thorfin?? He usually anchors in an area for 2 or 3 days then moves to aother area for another 2 or 3 days.. This way tender runs are usualy short (unless you request a dive site away from the current anchorage).. It definately saves time over land based operations especially when dving wrecks near the san fran..

__________________
Joe Radomski
CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer
ANDI Instructor Trainer Director #10

All posts are personal opinions and DO NOT reflect any affiliated agency unless specifically stated.

RZEP17

I did liveabord in 2002 and stay one night in the Blue Lagoon. Accommodation at BL are OK. Yet, beside diving and drinking, there is not much land operation may offer. You can visit all the local attractions (incl. WWII remains) in 15$ van tour offered by BL. My tour covered everything that is to see in about 2hrs(incl. two stops at the beer store).
On my trip I was diving on OC - so it was up to 5 dives at liveabord vs. two dives from resort - that was deciding factor for me.
Obviously diving Rebreather, allows you to have two longer dives instead 4-5 short ones, but even then I will still choose liveabord to avoid small boat rides to the dive site.
$$$ wise liveabord are more expensive but almost everything is included in the price and you got much more diving for what you pay.
Choosing liveboard, my vote will have to go to Odyssey over Thorfin - mostly due to the fact, that Thorfin is pretty much moored floating hotel, in the middle of the lagoon and almost all the dives are done out of the skiffs.
I've never been on Odyssey or Thorfin. In 2002 I dove out of Aggressor (which is no longer at Truk) so this are only my opinions. Aggressor and Odyssey were similar operations: boat moored over the wreck in the morning and 'the pool is open'- you choose your time and duration. During lunch move to the other location and pool is open again incl night dive - literally steps out of your cabin.
rgrds
Tomek

MHD

I wasn't on it, I was at BL. the entire week minus the first day It was parked over near Dublon Island. Definitely a shorter run to most of the deeper wrecks off the 4th fleet anchorage and the inner wrecks, but most diving was of the tenders. We regularly saw their tenders out near us. Very nice boats.

Matt