Palau in late summer as a lone diver

I've spent the last couple of weeks researching different places around Asia for my summer trip. I've always wanted to go to Palau, but always end up choosing somewhere else because Palau's not only an expensive country, it's also usually quite expensive to get there. However, I finally found what I consider to be a reasonable airfare for either the last week of August or the first week of September. If I do it, I would have 7 full days in Palau (Sunday to Saturday).

Ideally I'd like to spend around 3 or 4 days diving, one day going to Jellyfish Lake, another day going kayaking, and if I have a day left over maybe renting a bicycle and just riding around. I've got my PADI Advanced Open Water with a little over 30 dives, but I don't have any equipment and so would need to rent everything.

I'm a little concerned, though, because I've read some posts about people on their own having difficulty booking trips because there aren't enough people. Because I'd have such a short time there, I don't want to not be able to go out some days because there aren't enough other people. Does this seem like a legitimate concern for this time of year?

It sounds like Sam's Tours is quite popular but I've also heard that they're terrible at replying to e-mails. I've looked at their website and I see they have hotel/diving packages available starting at just over $1,000 for 7 nights, however that's for double occupancy and it looks like it's another $300-500 for single occupancy (depends on the hotel). And then I assume I'd have to add another few hundred on to that to rent the equipment. That's getting a little too expensive for my liking, so I'm wondering if any of you have any advice on keeping the costs reasonable for a lone diver.

Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated. Thanks,

Jason

I've not had any experience dealing with Sam's by email - but I know they try to be pretty attentive to their guests once in town.
You might be able to do it cheaper by going with one of the Japanese dive companies and booking hotel separately. When I was there gear was usually included in the price of the dive.
If you want to shop around try Fish and Fins and Neco - although I believe Neco is usually the most expensive.
For diving the time of year shouldn't matter (the trips that people often have problems with are for kayaking or snorkeling) - there will always be at least one dive boat going out from each of the bigger companies. You may get less choice about where you dive as a single - ie the groups generally schedule going to different places each day, so when you get added on to a group boat you may go to the same place you've been already. On the upside to that - every day on the reef is different so even doing Blue Corner for every dive could be fantastic!
If you have time you could do a couple days of diving in Peleliu - check out Maml Divers or Peleliu Divers (associated with Dolphin Bay resort). The advantage to diving from Peleliu is that you can get to the dive sites earlier than all the other boats and get to a few of the farther away dive sites that the Koror based companies rarely go to.
If you can go over a full moon, the diving will be even that much better... (the diving is always awesome there).

Good luck finding something to do!

Oh.. and hitting Jellyfish lake wouldnt be a problem - most places will do that as part of one of the dive days. Definitely not to miss.
To schedule Kayaking - work the rest of the schedule around that if you're going to do it through Sam's - or go with a japanese company - they will be a lot cheaper, but you may end out with a big group.

Thanks a lot for your reply, theperipateticepi! It definitely helps me with my research.

Jason

Jason, I still haven't dived Palau for the very same reasons- Since you only want to dive part of the week, you'll save a boat load of coin by booking your lodging separately. There are a couple places to
stay in Koror for around $50/$60 per night. Since you're going in the summer, I wouldn't worry too much
about Sam's not being able to fill a boat.

There's Lehns Motel (from $45), The Guest Lodge and the Palau Marine Club Antelope (has Clubhouse
singles from $25) An alternative to Sam's for scuba is Dive Marine Club (palau-net.jp)

Hey, kenko, thanks for the suggestions.

Your Welcome! Now that I know about the Antelope Marine Club, I'm planning my Palau trip too!

The Antelope Marine Club is a great place to stay. I stayed there 10 nights over the course of my visit to P.alau.

Book the hotel separately - if you're on a tight budget then consider somewhere in Koror like guest lodge or new koror hotel. As for diving costs, it's going to be around $120 per day for 2 tanks plus equipment rental - most places are charging roughly the same price but you can often get deals if you commit to say 8 or 10 dives. Consider renting equipment in your home country and bringing it with you - it may work out cheaper.

I've always been to Palau on my own and never had a dive trip cancelled due to lack of numbers. The issue with Sams Tours is likely to be the other way round - they always have large numbers of divers which I don't like. I used Neco Marine, fewer divers and more personal.