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Sun Dancer II Live-a-board

The Sun Dancer shuttle bus arrived on time and took us and our luggage to the boat. We were very impressed when we first saw the Sun Dancer II docked at the rather industrial looking docks! The boat was large and had plenty of room. The only thing that was small was our room. The bed was large but there was very little space around it. On the other hand, the room had more than adequate storage space. Our dive gear was immediately shuttled to the dive tenders where it remained all week and all the rest of of luggage was easily absorbed by the available storage in the room. The size of the room was never a problem as we only slept there.

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The first time we saw the Sun Dancer II.	The Sun Dancer II as we returned from a dive on a tender. Notice how calm the water is.	The other dive tender.
The room was small but comfortable.	The dive tenders were attached to either side of the big boat.	The dining room.
The outside part of the main deck where the wetsuit racks, rinse areas and camera tables are.	The bar area outside the dining room was stocked with various cold drinks.	My wife giving me the finger as she does her dive log.
What the heck do we do with this?	It's a reef hook! Used for hooking into to the reef so you can hang out and watch the wildlife in comfort when the current is really moving.

Ever wonder what life is like on this live-a-board? Here is a typical day:

• Get up at 6:00am and drag yourself upstairs to the dining room for breakfast. Breakfast included the typical cold cereals, oatmeal and breads. Different hot breakfast items were available every day.
• The bell rings the call to the dive briefing. The briefing took place on the deck just outside the dining room. A diagram of the site was drawn on a whiteboard including where to find the interesting stuff.
• Immediately after the briefing we moved to the tenders and got our gear ready including testing the O2 content before each and every dive.
• Return to the Sun Dancer II where hot showers, hot towels and fresh snacks are available. The snacks were great and were things like chocolate chip cookies, brownies or other sweets. Yummy!
• After a surface interval the bell rang to notify us of the next dive briefing. Afterwards we proceeded to the tenders for the second dive of the day.
• Second dive complete we return to the boat with enough time to dry off before the bell rings again this time letting us know that a delicious lunch is about to be served. Lunch is usually served buffet style. During lunch we are asked to choose an entree for dinner that evening.
• Well fed and rested the bell rings yet again to start the third dive briefing of the day followed by the dive.
• After returning from the third dive we are again treated to snacks again. This time they are a little healthier than the morning snack.
• Bell again for the late afternoon dive. This dive is usually the calmest and most relaxing dive of the day.
• Returning from that dive we clean up and dry off then the bell rings for dinner. Dinner is served on white tablecloths and we usually had at least two choices for an entree. Wine was also served but the rule was that if you drink you're done for the day. We only tried the wines on days we didn't have a night dive scheduled.
• After sunset the bell would be rung yet again for the night dive. The night dive is usually someplace pretty close and an easy dive.
• After the night dive hot chocolate was available as the evenings in Palau are surprisingly chilly.
• We would relax and socialize only a short while longer before we were pretty much exhausted.

How was the diving? I thought it was excellent. I read some reviews of Palau and expected to see dozens of sharks on every dive. I was a bit disappointed as there were rarely more than two or three sharks at each site. I was also surprised how shy the sharks were. Some reviews I've read said that the sharks were everywhere and bumped into you. I think the closest I ever got was about 5' but usually the sharks wouldn't allow you to get close at all.

We did enjoy the huge Anemones we saw all over the place and especially the Anemonefish found in almost all of them. I just couldn't get enough of watching them swim among the tentacles. In addition there were many Green and Hawksbill Turtles, schools of Chevron Barracuda, many schools of many different fish, Clams, Batfish, Lionfish, Mandarinfish, Triggerfish and even Eels. It seemed I saw several new fish on ever dive that I don't recall ever seeing before. Wow!

On the downside, the effects of El Niño were evident in many places. There were quite a few places with severe damage to hard corals. In other places the hard corals looked consistently healthy. Soft corals on the other hand were quite impressive at many sites. I even saw large groups of Black Coral. One of the other guests was on the same live-a-board almost exactly a year prior to this trip and he said that there were noticeably fewer fish, especially sharks, this time. It's possible the El Niño effect isn't completely over yet as the water was consistently around 84°F-87°F.

The following are some of my favorite underwater pictures from the trip. I took all these pictures with my Sealife Reefmaster RC. I do have an external strobe (VERY important!) as well as the 3X close-up lens. Also on this trip I tried out the new 8X and 16X macro lenses that just hit the market and I was very happy with them. Also new for this trip I use 200 speed slide film for the first time since the Sun Dancer II has E6 processing onboard. Only the last two dives were taken with standard print film. Clicking on these pictures will take you to the dive log entry for that dive for more information. You can also go directly to the dive log.

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Maybe a Humphead Bannerfish? Viewed: 57 times. More: Dive 88	Possibly a Magnificent Sea Anemone with several Pink Anemonefish. Viewed: 94 times. More: Dive 89	Playing with the macro lenses again for this great picture of a Large Giant Clam. Viewed: 66 times. More: Dive 95
This is my favorite picture from the entire trip. This picture of a Hawksbill Turtle passing by overhead couldn't have been better. Viewed: 128 times. More: Dive 96	A large Grey Reef Shark with a Remora attached passes just off the wall. Viewed: 228 times. More: Dive 97	This picture of a Spotfin Lionfish turned out pretty good. These Lionfish were much smaller than I expected. Viewed: 56 times. More: Dive 96
A Bohadschia Argus Sea Cucumber. Viewed: 79 times. More: Dive 100	A school of Chevron Barracuda with some Redtooth Triggerfish thrown in for good measure. Viewed: 117 times. More: Dive 102	The Madarinfish you see hiding just under the dead coral was VERY difficult to take a picture of. Viewed: 309 times. More: Dive 110
A great shot of a Spotted Porcelain Crab on the edge of a huge Anemone. Various other tiny fish are also around. Viewed: 103 times. More: Dive 97	My best picture to date of a Giant Giant Clam. Viewed: 79 times. More: Dive 103	I followed this Longfin Spadefish around for a while before I got this picture. Viewed: 78 times. More: Dive 109

Afterwards we just hung out and enjoyed an incredible sunset, the first we've seen due to the rain the previous couple days.

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Must get a polarizing filter for next time.	I see seven of them in this shot alone.	One more good shot.
We don't get sunsets like this in Chicago!	The following was an attempt to get some of the video together of the sharks swimming around the boat. I found it amusing how us so-called adults acted like children watching the sharks around the boat. It didn't turn out quite as well as I had hope but here it is anyway. QuickTime Movie - Approx 7.5M RealVideo - 56K modem or faster stream (1 minute 57 seconds) Viewed: 805 times.

At the end of the week he put together a slide presentation of the best pictures he took. That was fun. The guests then had a chance to put together their own slide show of their favorite pictures. But the best part was that after the slide presentation he put all the pictures that were taken of us in ziplock baggies for us to take home at no additional charge! Below are most of the pictures both below and above water that was taken of us during the course of the week.

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Lily taking in a wall dive.	Nice hard and soft corals.	Another picture of Lily.
Finally a picture of me.	There's both of us.	Why do I look so goofy under water?
Nice hair!	Nice soft corals!	Lily next to a Giant Clam.
Lily taking a nap?	Lily and I checking out a pair of fish.	A close-up Anemone probably eating.
Wow, I wish my pictures of Lionfish turned out this good!	Lily and I finding shade on an island.	Lily and I posing in front of the Sun Dancer II.
Posing during a tour of the Rock Islands.	Nice sunset but I got cut off!	Lily vegging on the sun deck at the end of the day.
Nice picture in front of Rock Islands Arch.	And finally a group shot of all the guests on the bow of the boat.

We visited a small island with one of the few sandy beaches we've seen. Most of the islands around Palau are rocky outcroppings with sheer cliffs. This one had a nice sandy beach on one side with palm trees. The sand was the most powdery soft I've ever felt!

On the last full day the large boat made a slow trip among the Rock Islands to the east side of Palau to do a couple dives. The drive was calm and serene and we got to take in some of the really nice scenery. Lily preferred to just lounge and read most of that trip.

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A cave in the side of one of the islands.	Where did this wing come from? We found it washed up on the beach.
One of the many little islands around Palau.	A bigger island.	Some of the Rock Islands.
We all found a spot to sit on the front of the boat to enjoy the view.	Captain Allen is outside, so who's driving the boat?	Just about everyone, including crew, was on the front of the boat.
Lily preferred to read than enjoy the scenery.	More cool little islands.	That's a neat looking island.
We stopped at the Arch for some pictures before mooring for the night nearby.	Rob in his sarong enjoying a sunset.	Another nice sunset.
Do you get sunsets like this in New York?	Lily lounging as usual.

In Conclusion...

The food was excellent and diving nitrox was great! After a couple days we noticed that we were very tired in the morning but felt great after the first dive. We debated wether that was the nitrox or the fresh cookies we were given after the first dive.

There are several other live-a-boards in Palau, the ones I know of include: Aggressor, Deep Blue Explorer and a small one on a sailboat. From the other guests who have been on Aggressor boats we heard that this was definitely a deluxe live-a-board but couldn't conclusively say wether Peter Hughes or Aggressor is consistently better. The impression I got is they both are at the top of their league with one better in some areas than the other.

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