Travel Blog: Part 7 - Diving, Diving and More

It's been an intensive couple days of what I'm starting to see as a diving lifestyle. (Yes, there's a lifestyle for this, just as there is for go-carts, or golf or gardening). To begin with the activity, I've been doing two days of three dives a day, which doesn't sound like much - six hours give-or-take in the water, but the prep. and associated planning for it adds many more hours.

I spoke a little about Peleliu last time, but it's a once in your life dive site, and there's people here that have been back to Palau multiple times and never had a chance to do it. I was lucky. (understatement, await the irony, ok, moving on.) The key to Palau diving I've discovered are the currents, which direction they run, how strong they are on a given day and so on. The currents drive the wildlife that shows up as fast flowing currents = food sources. So your bigger animals come for the current-provided food, and the divers 'hook-in' and watch the show. Palau is uniquely situated to be the junction point of a number of these pacific currents, and how they break over this little mushroom-shaped archipelago of limestone and volcanic rock delineates the best dives sites. (ok water flow lesson over. For homework, read up on water thermodynamics in Chapter 6, and there will be a test next Tuesday).

White Tip Reef Shark - Robin Ridilla

Peleliu, like Ulong Channel and the two Sias sites I dove yesterday are all strong current areas were oceanic walls have crevices, and the above-mentioned currents flows over the reefs into the deep blue. Think of these as underwater waterfalls, where the big stuff comes to feed on the small stuff and they are there to see what flows from the top. The currents are affected by lots of things and there was a recent big storm close-by, a typhoon that is moving north out of Iowa Jima as we speak and that means the normal currents are disrupted. All this by way of background to highlight the couple different schools of diving. There's your eager newbie that just enjoys the sights and being in an other-worldly situation, and I place myself in that group. There's your big game list types, that come just for the tiger sharks, whale sharks or spotted eagle rays. Then there's the mico-macro school, who place themselves on top of the others (diving = high school..a little) who are here for exotic nudibranches, which isn't what it sounds like, and revel in the exotic ultra-small finds on the walls and in the coral. All are interesting to dive with, and the composition of the personalities on your boat on any given day will drive the focus of the dives a little.

I've dove for the past few days with a group of Americans who formed a Wednesday dive club in Guam where they live, and have all come down for a vacation. It's a very experienced group, and they fall into the macro-micro school, though it's fascinating to talk to them, as they also can highlight extremely rare fish we see, which I would otherwise not recognise as being extraordinary. It's all incredible for me. But now I can say that I'm looking for centimetre sized mollusks on the walls too, and appreciating the galaxies of life I'm seeing the size of a fruit basket that seem to exist down deep every few feet. Of course as you fly past a wall, I'll admit to keeping en eye out to the deep blue as well to catch a 6-8 foot reef shark materialise from the gloom. Even these other experienced divers still marvel when the sharks come in close at your height for curiosity and you can reach out and touch them (not advisable by the way). There's literally huge wow factor going off everywhere you look. I find myself saying it aloud into my regulator, which makes me smile and let's water in. Anyway..

For myself, my favourite dive yesterday yesterday was the one that began with a fast descent to 100 feet (broke my own newly established record, and got to 114 feet down yesterday). This is Sias Tunnel, a 250 foot long tunnel under the sea wall. Quite dark, and it's akin to swimming in a cave. The depth makes it intimidating as I can't spend more than 5 minutes in that depth situation without getting bent (more on that later) but very adrenaline producing. We came up the wall after that, with groups of sharks flying formations around us, incredible corals I might only compare to 20 foot cauliflowers flowering before harvest, and trillions of fish. From fingernail size to 100 pounds, in schools and on their own. We saw circling balls of hundreds of fish being hunted, groupers chasing smaller prey, in turn being pursued by sharks, and we topped out on the coral garden amidst a fast drift, did our safety stop and then explored the reef top in 20 feet of water. I found a little moray eel protecting it's cave, and more turtles. It was mind-blowing.

Today's plan (I say plan as you can never be too sure until at the dive site), is to do my last two dives and Palau's signature sites, Blue Corner and Blue Hole. I'm told visits to these sites are never alike on any given days but I do know that regardless of the dive, it'll be sad to get out of the water this afternoon, recognizing its my last time as a privileged observer in this blue paradise.