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.
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