Travel Blog:Part 8 - The Last Dives

I had a set of religious experiences today, both underwater. For anyone (hi Mom) following the story so far, today was scheduled for the last two of ten dives. I had high hopes and had requested a specific set of locations: Blue Hole/Blue Corner. These are Palau's signature dive sites, the ones it's known for. I didn't want to miss them, and while I'd had a set of pretty extraordinary experiences so far and wasn't looking to top these, I equated this to visiting Paris and missing the Eiffel Tower, or not seeing the Colosseum in Rome. I won't say the great wall or the pyramids as I have actually missed those two despite repeated trips to both adjacent cities. Such is life.

Today started of normally enough, same Dive Master I'd worked with on a few days, and I knew a few divers on the boat by now. That first 15 minutes of cross introductions is always fun, as divers are making small talk and sizing each other up at the same time, lest there be any emergency underwater. We got underway and as usual it's about 45 minutes to the site. We ended up aiming for German Channel, and then were combining Blue Hole/Blue Channel into one dive. Both are rated high enough back at the dive assembly area to have their own site maps. No other sites have these. All good.

German Channel is a sloping plateau it turns out where Manta Rays get cleaned. (by little cleaner fish that nip off the crustaceans). There's two cleaning stations, one at a hundred feet, and the upper one at about 50 feet. Our plan is to kneel close by and wait up to 5 minutes to see an approaching Manta. These rays are large - small ones are 6-8 feet across and full size adults can be 20 feet from wing to wing. Hard to miss. After a briefing we pop into the water, and it's immediately different. The visibility is bad. 20 feet tops. We can barely see bottom. Off we go, grouping closer than normal, and we pass 60 feet and the visibility clears suddenly. The water temperature also drops in a big way. It's been 84-85 degrees almost uniformly at various depths around Palau, and the temperature is maybe 70 suddenly. We can see bottom, but frankly don't want to stay put due to the temperature. Keep in mind many divers are down with little more than a t-shirt. Some are in full gear, but it's not because the temperature warrants it. We move out of the cold and into the warmer water and promptly lose what little visibility there is. Imagine floating in a deep dense fog. After a few minutes of this the only perception I was sure of was going deeper as my ears kept needing to be equalized. There was a few moments where I lost all connection with everything around me, and it was only by following bubbles that I knew went up, that I had any sensation of where I was. We'd lost all but 2 divers in the haze and my eyes were locked on the assigned buddy I had, for fear I'd get lost. Finally, a fuzzy bottom started to appear and low and behold a young adult manta ray was circling. It was somewhat easy to make out with a black top, silhouetted against a sandy bottom. Having witnessed this at 90+ feet down, we turned up the slope back towards the second cleaning station. It was at this point, deep into the dive that I noticed I was burning through air faster than usual. On the way back up, still concurrently shivering from earlier cold, awestruck at the manta ray, and mildly freaked about the continuing gloom, I saw a shadow ahead. It seemed to partially materialize and with the poor visibility, I'm not sure what I saw. I think it was a 15-20 foot manta ray about 5 yards ahead. But I can't be sure. Once back at top, another diver said they also saw something. But I think it was my mind playing tricks. I do know that my heart went into my mouth.

Needless to say, I was burning air even faster in the state of excitement I was in. We got to the second station, saw yet another manta ray from afar and then slowly proceeded up the slope. We passed a turtle eating coral, and bunching it the way a kitten would grab a ball of yarn with it's front paws. All cool, but my mind was on my quickly dwindling air and the sense of agitation I still felt. It was doubtless my oddest dive ever, and it's going to the prototype for nightmare situations on floating lost..but I'm glad I did it. And I was very pleased to get out of the water. That was as close an experience to being out-of-body as I think I'll ever have.

Blue Hole

Some time on the boat to let residual nitrogen dissipate, some ice tea and a power bar later, we were ready for Blue Hole. Despite being Palau's signature dive location, I'll admit I didn't know much about it. Turns out there are four adjacent blue holes, very close together. These are literally "fence post holes" in the surrounding coral and limestone with a top entrance of maybe 10 yards across. They're vertical, and you don't swim down so much as fall down them. They're naturally formed, covered in life and eerie. After popping straight down to 90 feet, looking up at this cathedral of life with the sun beaming in through the top is breathtaking. Shaped like an upside down wine glass, the bottom is much larger than the top, but shaded and dark. There are windows or escape holes - some small, and some able to accommodate 4-6 divers at once. Despite all the movement over walls this week, and the various deeper descents and tunnels, this was flying.
I floated up at will to the arches to see the life exploding in this sistine chapel of the sea, with electric clams and exotic shrimp. There's also a grave marker in there of a Japanese diver that stayed forever in the cavern. The space, the light, the only sound being my own breath - it was humbling.

Reef Shark & Fish - Robin Ridilla

We left through a large window at 60 feet and were immediately surrounded by fish, wall coral, patrolling reef sharks and all of it spectacularly colored - probably due to the darkness of the hole we'd been in. It was stepping from the Vatican into Times Square and overwhelmed. Imperceptibly at first, the current began to pick up with every few moments, until you no longer needed to propel yourself. We drifted slowly at first accelerating more and more through vast schools of bright fish. They didn't move out of the way and would pass inches from your face, and I, theirs. We could see the top of the plateau and fish streaming over, all the while with deep blue on our right, sharks penning us in, lest we escaped in that direction. We crested the reef tableau and as we'd gotten spaced out a bit, our diver master got 2-3 people to hang on to wait here. Flowing fast now, I flew backwards into this group, grabbed and swung violently head into the current and made for a grab. I couldn't keep my place despite swimming as hard as I could, so descended until I was grabbing something that wouldn't cut my fingers open. I looked up to see an 8 foot reef shark in the blue abyss 20 feet off the wall turn back our way. Reminiscent of the wizard of oz, when turned he too was pushed sideways at speed. He may as well have suggested he'd get our little dog too as he was moved out of sight, pushed far behind us by the hand of the sea. We let go and continued our backwards flight over the reef, passing schools of barracuda, knowing our biggest fear was crashing into one another. We surfaced 15 minutes later and a kilometer away. It was a truly remarkable end dive, one for the retelling for years. I was last onto the boat, my Palau diving now bittersweetly over.

This was special and a day I'll always recall. Facing my own fears, witnessing the majesty below, then being propelled by forces greater than myself reminded me how small I am, and how much there is yet to see. Sometimes circumnavigating the globe, connecting worldwide and mastering our own domains we forget we are here by the good graces of nature.