Random Observations #2: An Epilogue

...continuing on from this mornings post (please read it first before this one).

I now suspect that while the local dogs (pretend to) have no road sense that they may actually be intelligent enough to get online and read blogs, such as mine. After I whinged about their lack of road sense this morning I have had not one but two casually wander in front of my moving car this afternoon. Both times it caused me to completely stop while waiting for them to nonchalantly amble past. I beeped my horn at both, one completely ignored it and just kept slowly walking, the other gave me a look like "hey what is your problem buddy, I'm just walking here man...".

Both of them looked at me first before deciding to wander out in front of me too. Clearly they wrote me off as a sucker that would definitely stop for them. What gets me is both could have waited about 5 seconds and crossed after me as there were no cars behind me both times. I was extremely tempted to try to give both a little bump but of course I refrained. Maybe I need to buy one of those small low powered bb gun pistols with just enough power to sting but nothing more.

So I therefore believe It's all a canine conspiracy, where the dogs are actually pretending to be dumb and inbred but really it's just so they can exert their dominance over us mere humans.

Palau: Random Observations #2

For a while now I’ve been meaning to write another post about odd things I’ve noticed here. Hope you find it interesting/amusing.

I know I’ve mentioned the dogs before but have I stated that the local chickens and roosters have better road sense than the dogs? It’s quite incredible that most dogs seem to have no understanding what to do, yet the chickens just seem to know how to get safely to the other side (must be due to all the jokes at their expense). The dogs are way too complacent here, relying on slow and highly defensive Palauan drivers to stop for them or to go around them. This doesn’t happen all the time though as I’ve seen a couple of flattened dogs on the road and quite a number of dogs seem to have bad limps with a hind leg. No doubt losing a battle with a vehicle. 

Also over the past few days we’ve seen lots of crabs crossing the road, there has to be a joke in here somewhere…

While still on the local dogs, I don’t think I mentioned how a good portion of the dogs here seem extremely short. It’s like their legs only grew half the normal length. I’ve since been told that this is what happens with constant inbreeding and is also the reason a lot of the cats have stubby tails or no tails even.

Ok enough on the dogs, back to the cars/driving. Something I failed to mention last time was about the window tinting on certain cars. Like a most rules here they aren’t enforced so become more of a vague suggestion of what you should do. Legally you can’t have tinting that blocks more than 35% of light. Some car windows are completely blacked out, I have no idea how the driver sees anything (maybe this explains the terrible driving!). A lot of others have put one of those retractable, suction cup windscreen shades across their front windscreen (yes, whist driving). It looks ridiculous to see all these cars driving around with the shades pulled across. But I guess at least they can retract them at night. 

Since school has started again the traffic of a morning and afternoon going down the main road on the island is terrible. It’s stop/start, extremely slow moving traffic. With no traffic lights they station cops at various ‘major’ intersections to loudly blow whistles and vigorously wave at traffic to keep driving and stop letting people in. What is probably more frustrating than the peak hour traffic is when driving outside those periods on fairly clear roads when you encounter somehow who refuses to drive quicker than 20kph as it far too dangerous to go any quicker.  

Also Palauan drivers have no clue how to drive near a cyclist. Twice I’ve seen someone who was driving adjacent to a bike, speed up to get 2 metres ahead of the cyclist only to turn across in front of him causing him to hit the brakes to avoid running into the side of the car. If that was in Australia the cyclist would probably be dragging the driver out of the window and laying a good beating on him. I’d honestly hate to see a typical Palauan driver attempt to drive in Australia or elsewhere, they would probably be the cause of multiple deaths. 

While still on cars: I have often noticed people driving on completely bald tyres. The worst was the one where most of the rubber was gone leaving a significant section of the fabric interior. Crazy!

On slightly related note I saw a roughly 18 month old child standing unrestrained in the front seat of a 4WD, half hanging out the window with two hands on a can of coke that it was chugging down. Amanda sure has her work cut out for her!

At finally a quick note on the service industry. It’s a really interesting mix in Palau, being a former US territory tipping is sometimes included on the bill, sometimes encouraged, sometimes not expected at all. We have received service that ranges from amazing to the worst ever. Some places know you by name, expertly split the bill without request and know what your regular order. Other places you  are made to feel like a complete inconvenience and have to get up from your table to find someone to give you a menu or take your order. Let’s just say the former places get tips, the latter do not. And one final observation which is kind of cool is that the service (petrol) stations still have someone who fills your car for you. 

Enjoy your weekend I’ll be working by helping train 8 US Army people with their Open Water diving course. Hopefully they actually want to get in the water unlike the two girls earlier in the week :o

Another lap complete

As of about 8:30 or 9:30am (I can never reminder which) this morning, Australian Eastern Standard Time I have completed yet another lap around the sun. My 35^th lap is now complete and my 36^th has just started. Just in case you are a little confused by this, today is my birthday and I’ve just turned 35.

My birthday has come up extremely quick this year with the whole year to date spent focused on preparations for the wedding and then the move (and settling in) to Palau. I honestly can’t believe it’s mid-late August suddenly. 

The other day I was reflecting a little about my last birthday and what I had planned for the year ahead, none of the above had even been thought of. About the most we’d discussed was a one week trip to Osaka which eventuated in November (I love that city and can’t wait to visit again). If someone had told me where I’d be this year I never would have believed that I’d be living in another country let alone one that I’d hardly heard of and could not accurately pinpoint on a map. On top of that after spending 11 years at the same workplace (in a variety of roles) I’d now be learning a completely different job/skillset. I don’t think you can get much more removed from sitting in an office doing project management to hanging out 30 metres below sea level watching sharks & turtles and cruising around a tropical paradise on a boat. 

A quick update on the diving: I feel I’m very quickly getting up to speed, I completed my Advanced and Nitrox courses about a week ago and my Rescue Diver course is scheduled for this coming weekend. In less than two weeks I’ve clocked up 20 dives in Palau. Over the past three days I’ve been helping with two different Open Water Courses. On Sat & Sun we had a large mixed group of eight students who were awesome, they all picked it up easily with hardly any issues.

However yesterday we had two young Taiwanese girls who I’m not sure had any concept what they were getting themselves into. They were reluctant to get into the water and almost drowned themselves when attempting the ‘10 minute float’ requirement. (Despite being in salty water AND wearing a wetsuit). Note, it takes some effort to drown yourself with that combination as it makes you extremely buoyant.  Anyway they got better as they day went on but I’m still glad to have today off as they will be challenged again by the skill requirements they need to complete today.

So I’m now sitting in a Palauan coffee shop struggling with terrible internet (the whole country’s connection seems to be getting worse lately) enjoying my well-earned day off. 

With my 36^th revolution beginning and after all the changes in my 35^th jaunt I wonder what changes the coming year will bring. Hope you enjoyed more of the pictures from my phone.

Pictures of Paradise

After my comment in my last post about how bad the weather has been over the past three weeks we’ve suddenly had 3 beautiful days. Today while out on the dive boat I had the realisation that I may well be living in paradise. 

Without going into depth (pun intended) about my amazing dives at German Channel & Blue Holes/Blue Corner today I thought I’d post a few photos I took topside. Bear in mind these were taken on my phone inside a waterproof case. 

Today's dive boat

spotted a manta ray on the ride home

DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!

Since my last post my Dive Master training has kicked off in earnest. Wednesday saw me start by helping a couple of guys from the AusAid funded Cleared Ground demining organisation get their Rescue Diver certs. This had me playing the panicked or unresponsive victim in a number of scenarios. This included moments where I had to pretend to be so freaked out that I would attempt to grab the regulator out of their mouth. Also on Wednesday I started on my Advanced certification. This included a navigation dive and a deep dive to 24 metres (just to make sure I don’t go silly with a reaction to nitrogen). It was great to get back in and under the water again, I was happy to see I hadn’t really forgotten anything from my Open Water course from earlier in the year (must have been the great instructor we had).

Thursday was more rescue scenarios with the Cleared Ground boys and also a 30 metre wreck dive on the Amatsu Maru - A Japanese tanker that was sunk near the end of WWII. It is the longest and deepest of all wrecks in Palau and conveniently located in Malakal bay which is only a few minutes by boat from the dock at Sam’s Tours. This was my first wreck dive so I’m not sure how it compares but I thought it was a truly incredible experience. It was very surreal to be at such depth, slowly and serenely moving over (and through) something man made with such historical significance. Imagining people climbing up and down the stairs and in and out of the various hatches was easy. It was also rather sobering to think how many people would have died when the tanker was bombed and sunk.

If you’d like to read a little more about the Amatsu Maru here is a good link I found:

http://www.fishnfins.com/v2/en/dive-sites/amatsu-maru.html

keeping a close eye on my gauges

Friday I joined in on a normal customer dive trip to complete my advanced course by doing a drift dive. Where you jump in off a boat, dive down and use the current to carry you along a coral wall. We did two of these dives on the day, one at a place called Big Drop Off which I’ve been told Jacques Cousteau’s once touted “the world’s best wall dive” due to the varied, colourful coral and great marine life. The second dive was at a place called Barnum’s wall. Both were fantastic sites with plenty of turtles a few different reef sharks and a large variety of fish. 

My advanced course is now technically complete just awaiting a few signatures. I’ll be joining many more dives in coming weeks to get my experience up before participating in the next rescue diver course then onto Dive Master.

On another note the wet season is well and truly here. It’s been raining for near 3 weeks straight with minimal breaks. The last time I saw this much rain in one short period 239% of my home state of Queensland flooded!