Palau: An Aerial Pictorial

Over the past few weeks my parents have been in Palau visiting us and checking out where we live now. Last week my Dad celebrated his 70th Birthday. For such a big birthday we had to do something special. So we decided to take him up for a helicopter flight over Palau. It was one of best things we could have done. The flight was incredible, Palau truly is a stunningly beautiful place.

I think the following results speak for themselves:

The Arch

Seventy Islands

Seventy Islands

Blue Holes (top centre) and Blue Corner dive sites. Check out all the bubbles from divers on the top side of the corner.

Blue Holes & Blue Corner dive sites

Jellyfish lake, the orange tinge at the bottom of the lake is indeed jellyfish

German Channel dive site

During our flight we also saw piles of turtles, sting rays and even about 7 or 8 dugongs. We flew with Aussie pilot Matt Harris and his company Rock Island Helicopters. I would highly recommend them for anyone who now has a helicopter flight over Palau on their bucket list.

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