Palau 11/21

            Today was another exciting day.  We got up at our usual time to join the group at around 8 a.m.  We had the two Chinese guys and a girlfriend, the Japanese lady, a Japanese man, and two new guys from a University in Hawaii who were here working with the community college in Palau, plus our usual group of Fabio, Fabricio, Barbara, Tua, Eric, and me.  It has been an interesting mix of countries this trip. 

            We set off around 8:30 and headed for Blue Corner.  Because tomorrow is the new moon the currents should be picking up to their fullest potential today and tomorrow.  We got to Blue Corner and the current looked pretty good so we dropped in.  When we got down to the reef there was a good current so we all hooked in to watch the show. 

There were quite a few sharks riding the current and gliding by within a foot or so of our faces—very neat to see them that close up.  Unfortunately, when I went to use my video camera all the settings were good, but when I went to hit record the button had gotten messed up when we put the camera in the housing and I could not hit record.  So for this dive I had to record everything in my head.  It was still a really neat dive getting to watch the sharks come in so close.

After watching the sharks for a while we unhooked and drifted down the top of the reef.  As we ascended to do our safety stop everyone was ahead of us and I noticed them pointing back behind me, so I turned my head to see a big turtle gliding down through the water with a batfish swimming alongside.  It had obviously just gone up to the surface to get air and was making its way back down to the reef again.  Eric was just in front of me and did not see it, so I grabbed my noisemaker to get his attention.  He had just started shutting down his camera and so quickly turned everything back on and got a few shots of it.    

After we surfaced we slowly motored our way to the second dive site, New Drop Off.  This site can also get some pretty good current, but usually does not have the sharks like Blue Corner.  However, it does have much prettier coral on top of the reef.  So after our surface interval was over, we dove in and dropped down and hooked in.  There were a lot of other fish to watch here, but not many sharks.  After a few minutes we unhooked and drifted along the top of the reef. 

There were a few schools of striped snapper and some other fish hanging on top of the reef.  There was also a very pretty purple anemone with a couple fairly cooperative clownfish living in it. 

After we surfaced we decided to have our lunch on the boat again as off in the distance we could see it was raining pretty heavily on the island where we often go to have lunch on the beach.  So we all got out our bento boxes and began to eat.  The more we ate, the closer the rain got.  Everyone hurried to finish their lunch and got their rain gear on just in time for the rain to hit.  Unfortunately, we had to head into the rain to get to our next destination.  It was raining so hard it was almost white-out conditions and boy was it a cold rain. 

We finally made it through the rain and headed to another island to drop off the Japanese man and the Japanese guide to do a third dive as the rest of us headed over to Jellyfish Lake.  Eric and I waited on the boat as Mandy was going to swing by and pick us up to go out to German Channel again to see if we could see some more mantas. 

By the time we got to German Channel I think I counted about 12 boats.  Most of the divers were already in the water or getting out, so Mandy got in to snorkel over and see if anything was happening.  She said there was not much current, but there were already mantas feeding, so we decided to go ahead and get in. 

There was not quite as much current today and there were quite a few more people around, but we still got to see six mantas dancing and feeding.  I got some really good video and Eric got some really good photos this time in spite of the huge amount of planktonic “snow” in the water.  Watching the beautiful, graceful mantas was the perfect way to end another good dive day. 

As Mandy had picked us up in a much smaller boat, it took a little longer to get all the way back to the shop and part of the way we had to go through another rainstorm, but it was a very good day.