Palau October 2012 Day 3

10/17/12

After another good breakfast at the buffet here at the hotel we all met up at 8:45 at the boat for our first dive of the day--the nautilus dive.  Fabio had gone out the night before and set the traps to catch the Nautilus.  Apparently these prehistoric creatures have a taste for chicken, who knew.  He then went out about 6 a.m. to see how many took the bait.  They caught 10 nautilus, which worked out great because we had 10 divers so each diver got their own nautilus to hold and photograph.  

We took the nautilus out into the open water to take photographs, etc. to keep them away from any fish that might try and attack them on the reef.  After we all got our pictures of our individual nautilus’ we then gave them back to Fabio to put in his mesh bag.  We then swam along the reef at Short Drop Off for a while and then toward the end of our dive we swam back out into the open water and Fabio released all the nautilus together to let them make their way back to their home in the deep ocean.  Typically Nautilus live in deep water around 600-800 feet deep.  They generally only come up a bit shallower at night to feed and mate.  It was an awesome experience to be able to see such amazing creatures that have been around since prehistoric times.  

We then took another amazing boat ride to our next destination--Blue Holes.  Unfortunately the current and surge here were pretty intense so we were not able to drop down into the holes from the top, but instead we entered through the widow on the side of the reef.  It was still a really cool experience for everyone.  Then we swam out another of the windows on the side of the reef and swam along the reef down toward the Blue Corner area.  This is a really beautiful wall, but then again all the walls in Palau are beautiful.  There are fish everywhere you look.  Towards the end of the dive a large Napoleon wrasse circled Eric begging for his picture to be taken.  Then the wrasse spotted some other people and headed toward them to get his picture taken.  The fish here are so used to divers they have no fear of having their picture taken.

For lunch we ended up anchoring in a very shallow channel.  The view was spectacular, but then again pretty much every view in Palau is spectacular.  We enjoyed our lunch and some good conversation and then headed toward our final dive site of the day, New Drop Off.  The current was pretty strong here as well and we ended up hooking in at the corner of the reef and several people got some really good shark photos as they were coming in pretty close to the reef.  We stayed hooked in for about 30 minutes and then we headed on down the reef.  We also saw a very pretty turtle and another large group of fish. 

Ricky, our boat captain then took us for an amazing ride back through the islands to the dive shop.  Jody and I had fun riding on the very front of the boat, enjoying the wind in our hair and the amazing views.