Hi everyone – It’s been quite some time since our last update! We recently finished up a week on Palau which has been one of our favorite stops to date (and is one of the last on our trip :( ).
We've been hearing amazing things about the diving in Palau for as long as we’ve been scuba diving. The country also has a famous lake well known for being filled with thousands of non-stinging yellow jellyfish that you can snorkel through. The pictures of the lake look incredible, and we’ve wanted to see it for ourselves for a long time.
When we first arrived on the island, we were a little worried about our prospects on both these fronts. It was pouring rain and the seas were a bit rough for some of the more remote dives we’d been hoping to do. We also quickly learned that the famed jellyfish lake had seen a number of jellyfish die off recently and so most tour operators had agreed to stop tours for a few months until the population recovered. Although some rogue tour operators would still take groups, it didn’t feel like a very responsible thing to do.
We spent our first few days on the island exploring the town, and doing several wreck dives on the inner reefs, well protected from the waves & weather. We got a chance to see a bit of history we hadn’t planned on, as most of the wrecks were Japanese naval vessels sunk during WWII (one of the largest ones we dove was a huge tanker used to fuel the bombers used in the Pearl Harbor attack). You could also see several of these wrecks from shore, which added an interesting element to the landscape. Here are a few of our favorite wreck pics:
We've been hearing amazing things about the diving in Palau for as long as we’ve been scuba diving. The country also has a famous lake well known for being filled with thousands of non-stinging yellow jellyfish that you can snorkel through. The pictures of the lake look incredible, and we’ve wanted to see it for ourselves for a long time.
When we first arrived on the island, we were a little worried about our prospects on both these fronts. It was pouring rain and the seas were a bit rough for some of the more remote dives we’d been hoping to do. We also quickly learned that the famed jellyfish lake had seen a number of jellyfish die off recently and so most tour operators had agreed to stop tours for a few months until the population recovered. Although some rogue tour operators would still take groups, it didn’t feel like a very responsible thing to do.
We spent our first few days on the island exploring the town, and doing several wreck dives on the inner reefs, well protected from the waves & weather. We got a chance to see a bit of history we hadn’t planned on, as most of the wrecks were Japanese naval vessels sunk during WWII (one of the largest ones we dove was a huge tanker used to fuel the bombers used in the Pearl Harbor attack). You could also see several of these wrecks from shore, which added an interesting element to the landscape. Here are a few of our favorite wreck pics:
Post-WWII the US became a big presence on the island, and you could see the evidence everywhere. Most of the branded goods were US-based, and many of the stores were as well. They still have a Ben Franklin dime store on the island (!) which was a nice blast from the past. Otherwise, the town of Koror itself was small (the whole country only has a bit over 20K people, most of whom live in or around Koror). We also used our time to get certified to dive with Nitrox (an air blend with more oxygen that allows divers to stay underwater longer than normal compressed air does). We hadn’t planned to do it, but always nice to learn something new and useful!
On our last few days, the weather cleared, and we were able to make some dives in the far outer reefs of Palau. It was, in a word, stunning. I think we’d both agree that a couple of the dives we did were probably the best dives we’ve ever done anywhere. There were HUGE vertical reefs (think multiple football fields set next to each other) stretching as far in both directions and down as you could see. Big schools of fish patrolling, and TONS of sharks and turtles as well, pretty much every direction you looked. At one point, Greg looked back at the reef after having been looking out to the ocean for a few seconds, and discovered he was almost right on top of a sea turtle he hadn’t even known was there! A few of our favorite pics from the outer wall dives are here:
On our last few days, the weather cleared, and we were able to make some dives in the far outer reefs of Palau. It was, in a word, stunning. I think we’d both agree that a couple of the dives we did were probably the best dives we’ve ever done anywhere. There were HUGE vertical reefs (think multiple football fields set next to each other) stretching as far in both directions and down as you could see. Big schools of fish patrolling, and TONS of sharks and turtles as well, pretty much every direction you looked. At one point, Greg looked back at the reef after having been looking out to the ocean for a few seconds, and discovered he was almost right on top of a sea turtle he hadn’t even known was there! A few of our favorite pics from the outer wall dives are here:
We spent our last day kayaking around the main island, since we couldn’t dive right before our flight. We’d befriended a few Delta pilots who had been coming to Palau for years, and they’d tipped us off to a cove of Jellyfish you could get to off the open ocean if you knew where to look. Having missed out on our chance to see the lake, we were excited to try our luck here. We found the cove and had it all to ourselves for more than an hour as we tied up the kayak and recreated the lake experience we’d been hoping for (only complication: the ocean jellyfish DO sting :) ).
With that – off to our last major stop, New Zealand. Thanks as always for reading and more to come soon!
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