Palau 11/19

            We had pretty much the same routine again this morning.  We walked across the street to the Drop Off and I typed up the blog from yesterday and Eric published it.  The two Chinese guys actually showed up on time today, but we had to wait for Fabricio and Barbara.  They took yesterday off to rent a car and drive around the island to see the waterfall and jungle, etc.  Fabio started to worry that maybe they got lost in the jungle. 

            Once everyone was on the boat we headed to the first dive site of the day, Saies Tunnel.  This is another good dive for silhouette shots.  It is sort of an underwater cave with three exits/windows.  We zigzagged our way in and out of the windows and then made our way along the wall to the top of the reef. 

            During our first dive we could see that it was raining pretty hard on the surface of the water, but by the time we came up it had moved on.  However, the next wave of rain then decided to come through while we were doing our surface interval, so we all got on our rain gear and huddled in the middle of the boat.  It is amazing how cold the rain can be in such a warm climate.  After the rain everyone was good and ready to get in the water for the second dive so we could get warmed up. 

            Our second dive was at Saies Corner.  This dive site is a corner kind of like Blue Corner, but not as big and much prettier with lots of colorful coral on the reef.  Again we were hoping for some current here, but there really was not much.  It was a pretty dive, though, with a bunch more turtles and the usual other suspects like clownfish, butterfly fish, Napoleon wrasse, etc. 

            After the second dive we stayed in the same spot and had lunch on the boat as the island was getting rain and we wanted to stay warm and somewhat dry.  Following lunch we headed back to the dive shop.  The two Chinese guys wanted to do a third dive so we dropped them off at a dive site on our way back to the shop.  Then Logan, our boat driver, took the rest of us back to the shop.

            We then rinsed our cameras and Eric got his laptop and checked emails at the Drop Off before heading back to our apartment to get cleaned up.  After getting cleaned up we then wandered back over to the Drop Off so that Eric could do some work (have to pay for the trip somehow).  While Eric worked I checked out my video clips from today. 

We grazed our way through the afternoon at the Drop Off and before we knew it the sun was setting and it was time for bed.  We have an early morning tomorrow as we are going out with Mandy to try and see the bumphead parrotfish aggregation and spawning.  We have to be at the shop around 5:30 a.m. tomorrow morning.