Palau Siren
We Just got back from a 10 day trip on the Palau Siren. They picked us up from Palau Pacific Resort at 5:30 PM and took us to Sam’s Tours where they put us on a boat to transfer us to the Palau Siren. The boat looked great and seemed to be a good condition. The rooms are all very large by liveaboard standards and could be put in a king or 2 twin formation. The rooms had plenty of power outlets and cabinet space. The salon was large but had very low ceilings, with plenty of seating and a big sceen TV. All the meals were served in their spacious covered outside dinning area. Meals were served in a buffet style with breakfast having eggs cooked to order. The crew did a great job to make you feel at home and they were very attentive to your needs.
The dive deck was nice and each person had a station with a large drawer where a warm towel would be waiting for you after your dive. All diving was done from the two skiffs and your gear stayed on the skiffs since they have long enough whips to fill from the Siren. We were separated into three groups of 5 or 6 with three guides. All you had to take to the skiff was your camera. The crew would help me lift and transfer my camera to the skiff. The Captain was always there at the end of the dive to take my camera from me. There were two large rinse tanks for cameras, torches and electronics. Camera tables were inside and not very roomy, but there seemed to be plenty of electrical plugs for our group. The boat has 220v European style plugs with the two prongs. We only had two big camera set-ups and two video set-ups and that took up most of the room. They had a great drawer system with your number on it so each person got a big drawer and a small drawer. This was perfect for storing stuff like your camera accessories or logbooks.
The dive sites we did were great but they did not do the itinerary that they advertise on the website. The guides said they never do that itinerary. We spent 5 days moored in the same location and dove the same sites over and over again. We did two sites (German Channel and Blue Corner) five times each and we were definitely ready for something different. The guides were fun but we seemed to miss the current on every dive. In fact we only used our reef hooks on one dive and we probably didn’t need them. They told us we would have 45 minutes at the Jelly Fish lake but called us out of the water after only 35 minutes so I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get more time there.
We saw lots of black tips, white tips and grey reef sharks. Blue Corner has a resident Napoleon Wrasse who is quite friendly. I suspect someone is feeding him. Schools of barracudas were frequently seen. Every site had Green and Hawksbill turtles to enjoy. We even had a visit from a huge Dogtooth Tuna.
On our down time we took the kayaks out and enjoyed a paddle around the rock islands. The Siren had a huge sundeck with great lounge chairs, but my favorite place was in one of the hammocks on the shaded dive deck.
Overall the Siren is a nice boat with a great crew but I would have preferred diving some of the other dive sites of Palau.
