Palau 11/24-25

            Today was another typical day in paradise.  We got up at the usual time and wandered over to the Drop Off where we found Fabio.  We split the groups up today so we just had the two Koreans, the couple from Hawaii, Eric and me, and a new lady, Bentley.  So we had plenty of space on the boat to spread out. 

            Our first dive site was Blue Corner.  We did not have the current we had the other day, but it was good enough to bring in some sharks and several Napoleon wrasse.  After we hooked in on the corner and watched the sharks for a while, we  then drift along the wall and ran into a shark that had been mating.  Shark mating is a very violent act and the females are very ripped up and sometimes have chunks of flesh missing.  Further on down the wall we came across some large schools of fish spawning and some other schools of fish swarming in to eat the eggs.  Then as we ended the dive out in the blue we saw a large school of barracuda. 

            After that dive we slowly made our way to the second dive site, Virgin Blue Hole.  After our surface interval, we jumped in and floated on the surface over to the hole.  It is only possible to do this dive when it is high tide, as the entry hole is on the top of the reef in very shallow water.  Once over the hole, we dropped down into the shaft to the bottom at around 100 feet.  Then we swam toward the light at the exit hole and swam out onto the wall.  This site offers some very pretty coral and some neat swim-throughs, which you don’t see many of in Palau. 

            We then headed to the beach for lunch and after a relaxing lunch we headed back to Palau Pacific Resort (PPR) to drop off Jeff and Teri.  We had kind of a cold, wet ride to PPR, the rest of the way to the next dive site, and eventually back to the dive shop.  On the way to the dive shop we stopped at a dive site called the Helmet.  It is a shipwreck from World War II.  No one was sure what the actual name of the ship was so they call it the Helmet wreck because it contains Japanese helmets.  We dropped the Korean couple and Bentley off here in a driving rain and then headed back to the dive shop. 

            In the rain we hurried across the street to our apartment.  I was hoping and praying we had hot water today.  It has been kind of hit or miss as to whether we get any hot water.  At first I thought I had it figured out—I thought that because the water heater was far away from the bathroom it just took a while to get to the shower, but apparently I was wrong.  I think the water heater is shared by several units and whomever gets the hot water first hits the jackpot.  For a couple days in a row we did without hot water.  Today we got lucky and had plenty of hot water. 

            After we got cleaned up we crossed back over to the Drop Off and met with Fabio for a while and then came back to the apartment to rest for a while.  We had plans to meet Fabio and Tua at the Drop Off around 7 p.m. to go out to dinner at The Taj.  Tua will be leaving tomorrow afternoon and she had never been to Taj, so we had a nice dinner sharing a bunch of vegetarian dishes. 

            After dinner Fabio dropped us off in front of our apartment and we said goodbye to Tua just in case we did not see her tomorrow.  Then we were off to bed. 

           

            Today I woke up and unfortunately I had come down with Fabio’s cold.  He has been sick for about the past week and I thought I was going to manage not to catch it, but I wasn’t so lucky.  So I decided today I would go out on the boat, but not dive.  We only have today and tomorrow left of diving and then our dry day before we fly.  Unfortunately, today was cloudy and rainy all day.  The water was a bit on the choppy side too, but I could not complain that it was hot on the boat. 

            The first dive site we went to was Sandy Paradise.  Today we had a small group on the boat.  It was just Fabio guiding Eric, Jeff, Teri, and Bentley.  They saw all the usual suspects on the dive, nothing out of the ordinary. 

            The second dive we went to Saies Corner.  On the way to this dive site we came across a huge pod of dolphins, so we circled around in the boat and played with them, watching them jump and spin.  After the surface interval, Eric, Jeff, and Teri along with Fabio dove in.  Bentley was not doing the second dive as she was flying out the next day.  So our boat driver, Logan, took the boat over to the edge of the wall so that Bentley could snorkel.  She spent a good 45 minutes or so snorkeling.  When the rest of the boat surfaced they said it was a rather uneventful dive with really no current to speak of. 

            As it was kind of a rough, rainy day, Logan took the boat into a quiet inlet in the Rock Island area for us to have lunch.  After enjoying our lunch we all bundled up for the rainy ride back to PPR and Neco Marine.