Friday 25 October 2013

Diving in Palau Part III: German Channel



German Channel is another of the most popular dive sites in Palau. Primarily due to the possibility of getting up close and personal with Manta Rays. The channel is named due to the mining of a long channel through the coral during German occupation of Palau prior to WWI. The original purpose of the channel was to ease and speed up transport of guano (phosphate) into town from Angaur island so it could be shipped internationally.

While seeing Manta Rays have been more miss than hit lately I have had one very special dive where a very large beautiful black manta graced us with its presence. They truly are incredible creatures and I couldn’t believe the size they get to. The one we saw spent around 30 minutes constantly circling the cleaning station while cleaner wrasse fish gave the Manta a good old cleaning. At one point one of my divers ran low on air, I quickly switched him to my alternate air source so the group could stay there longer. The Manta noticed the small commotion and came in for a closer look. It stopped about 1-2 metres away from us with one very large eye looking straight at us. I’m sure it was wondering what the hell we were up to. After a long inquisitive look it resumed circling the cleaning station. 

Other typical sights you can see at German Channel are large schools of Jacks, various sharks and a huge variety of colourful small reef fish. Also if you time the incoming tide you can end your dive by rocketing up towards the channel, just make sure you use your safety sausage to surface to alert any passing boats to your location.


Again, all pictures have been re-appropriated from a Google image search. If you own them and would like recognition or removal please let me know.
An aerial view of the channel
The ride through the channel at low tide






Tuesday 22 October 2013

Diving in Palau Part II: Blue Corner


Up close & personal with some misunderstood friends
By far the most well-known dive site in Palau is called Blue Corner. It truly is a fantastic site due to the massive amount of life and variation you can see all in one dive. It’s like you are in the world’s best aquarium, often you don’t know where to look first. You could endlessly watch the 20 or so sharks slowly gliding mere metres from you. You could play with the extremely large Napoleon Wrasse fish which I once heard someone refer to as the puppy dog of the sea. You could get right up close to a massive school of around 50 Great Barracuda that are almost always just hanging out near the corner. And only last week I saw a group of 5 Marlin cruise above the corner. Don’t forget all the beautiful coral, like the soft anemone coral complete with various versions of Nemo’s. If the current is strong you can ‘hook’ into the reef and just sit back with the current washing over you while checking out everything that there is to see.

Great Barracuda
Please note, none of these pictures are mine. They’ve all been re-appropriated from a google image search. If they are your photos and would like recognition or removal please contact me. 

Hooked in with a Napoleon Wrasse
For more pics of Blue Corner & diving in Palau please check out Wendy’s awesome photos here 


Marine life everywhere!

 

Monday 21 October 2013

Diving in Palau Part I: Bad Weather



In my last post I mentioned heading to Palau’s Independence Day celebrations. I promise I will write a small blog post and put up some pictures soon*. First I wanted to give you some insight into my diving here. I’m going to break it up into a couple of smaller posts to not bombard you with too much waffle in one sitting. (Yes I know exactly how small the attention span is of my average reader, you are already getting distracted aren't you???)

For about 3-4 weeks now Palau’s weather has been heavily affected by three different Typhoons in the Asian region. None have been particularly near us but they have seemed to draw very bad weather to Palau. We’ve had lots of rain, frequent storms and very strong winds. Realistically it hasn’t been too bad (for most people), however for myself out diving and working on a small boat it’s had a pretty large impact. A number of the best dive sites in Palau have been off limits due to that size of the waves & surges and other sites have had very poor visibility. We’ve mostly kept to the more protected sites but 4 weeks is a long time to be doing this. Also we’ve had some guests come and go without getting to the premium site called Blue Corner. 

Two weeks ago I was working with a group of about 20 very experienced divers from Taiwan. It was a great group and despite not having a common language with most of the group we all had a fun time. Except for the boat rides! 

The majority of dive sites are about a 50 minute boat ride away from Koror. But in bad weather with large seas and frequent heavy rain storms it makes for a slower, longer and at times rough & painful journey. When the heavy rain coming in sideways and is so hard it feels it’s stripping your skin off, when the small boat is smashing up and down on 10 foot+ waves, and the strong winds take you from feeling warm to freezing, it’s not much fun at all. During these boat rides the guests were all wearing full wet suits (and their masks in some cases) just to stay warm and protected from the painful spray/rain.

On the last day of diving with the Taiwanese group we braved the unprotected side of Ngemelis island to visit Blue Corner. Once rounding the point and in open water the ride suddenly became ridiculous, the seas were forecast to be 10 feet but I think they were easily higher. We pre-prepared all our divers by fully gearing them up and their tanks sitting in the secure in the holes behind each seat. The boat was smashing up and down so much that despite being secured in a tank hole one poor gentleman flew out of his seat and crashed into the deck of the boat. I have no idea how he was unscathed by his short flight and crash landing in full gear no less. With much difficulty we somehow got to the site and managed to get all our divers in the water. The dive itself was great but I’ll explain more on that later.

At the end of each dive we do a 3 minute safety stop at 5 metres. With the strong waves/current above us, the surge was moving us up & down and back & forth quite voilently. Between this, the ride out and having to run around a thrashing boat while trying to help divers into the water I started feeling quite ill. On hitting the surface I promptly spewed! Yep…. Awesome. My first spew in Palau. At least I didn’t as bad when I saw or heard of another 4 people in the group had also spewed either underwater or after getting back on the boat. And one poor gentlemen spewed after every single dive all week. Not wanting to leave it at that I also managed to spew after getting back on board the boat from the very next dive. It wasn’t an overly pleasant day I must say. And rightfully so I copped a bit of good natured ribbing from some of my colleagues back at work over the next few days.

Stay tuned for future parts of 'Diving in Palau' detailing some of Palau's best dive sites.

*The use and definition of 'soon' is intentionally ambiguous. "Pieces of Eights" legal team strongly advising the not holding of one's breath while waiting for said post.

Saturday 5 October 2013

The pulled up shirt phenomenon



I’ve meant to get around to mentioning this odd phenomenon a number of times but have kept forgetting. So here goes:

A lot of the local men who have manual labour jobs (or are just sitting around outside) do this weird thing with their shirts where they pull the lower half up over their belly. I find it hilarious odd. You’ll get these groups of guys (or individuals) working or sitting around with a shirt on but with their bellies sticking out. Obviously it’s done for cooling purposes but why not take the whole shirt off?!?

Amanda reckons it’s a form of modesty but I don’t get why it’s ok to pull your shirt up and show your (often fat) gut but taking it off completely would be offensive. I first thought it might have been an attempt to protect the shoulders from the sun. But no locals seem worried about getting burnt and with their darker skin it’s probably not as much of an issue for them as it is for us whities.

Has anyone seen this phenomenon elsewhere in the world or is it a uniquely Palauan thing?

UPDATE: in searching for an image to show you I came across an American in the Philippines talking about the same thing. So maybe Palau has imported the quirky fashion trend from there.