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We celebrated my birthday all week with scuba diving in Belau, the local name for Palau. It was some world-class diving through caves, along deep walls and cruising over the reefs. I especially enjoy this floating in the 3-dimensional ocean space, looking into the vertical abyss and knowing, that I can not fall down. ( I don’t like heights on land, probably because I know how many things can break from a fall.)
It was a very relaxing birthday week in the ” uninhibited” ( according to the tourist office’s pamphlet) isles. We did not witness any lack of inhibition from the locals, since we got here 11 days ago. The people are very friendly and we did not even see any drunks or other forms of debauchery. Just the perpetual betel nut chewing. The most exciting event was when ” Poker ” , our betel-nut intoxicated dive boat captain, decided to take us on a joy ride on the way back to the marina. He opened up the throttle of the twin 225 HP engines, and we did some hair-raising boating around blind corners between the Rock Islands. He would go full speed, aiming for what appeared to be a solid wall of jungle, only to find a hidden channel at the very last moment, just when I thought we would crash against the rocky shore. The “highlight” was going full speed under a natural limestone arch, which did not appear to be high or wide enough for our boat to make it through. We made it to the sound of “no,no” screams of some divers on board.
We did not do much besides diving. We often were too tired to go into town for dinner and again last night just had German ” Schwarzbrot” with La Vache Qui Rit cheese. Sometimes we just had a glass of wine on our hotel balcony, overlooking the boats in the harbor. Not a bad way to celebrate a birthday.
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Our last day of diving here on Palau was our most exciting yet. We did two extreme dives, one after the other. These should keep our adrenaline humming till the next diving opportunity arises again, probably not till next year, unless we want to brave the cold Lake George waters.
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This area of the northern Pacific, in the Philippine Sea has got to rate as one of the most beautiful places on earth. There is definitely picture perfect scenery around every bend. We are living in a hotel in the Koror Harbor, from which every morning we can fall out of bed and into our dive boat.
Between 8:00 and 8:30 are scheduled departures with 8-12 divers on board. Since most people don’t come to Palau just for a day trip:lol:, we get to know the other divers quite well and often exchange diving stories. By around 8:30 island time, we are on our way through the Rock Islands to our dive site destination. Along the way there are magnificent vistas of about 200 (I don’t know if someone really counted them) overgrown tropical green limestone based islands, the bases of which have been washed away, giving many an appearance of looking like a mushroom cap.
After about an hours ride, it’s time to suit up for the big pool. Suiting up here means putting on a diveskin, since the water is a balmy 28-9 degrees C. Once all the equipment is donned, we do a back ward roll off the side of the boat and are transported into another dimension.
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2 days ago, we were diving at Ulong Channel in the Rock Islands of Palau. We were on the west side of Palau, which is about 470 miles east of the Philippines. It was a great drift dive and we saw large schools of tropical fish, turtles and quite a few white- tip reef sharks. We were zooming along the edge of a vertical wall, and at times, we used our reef hooks to stay in one place and peered over the edge, looking down into the deep blue with all the fish cruising by in front of us.
For lunch our dive boat stopped at Ulong Island, one of the Rock islands. It was here in 1783 that the first European contact with Palau took place :
The English captain Henry Wilson wrecked his ship the “Antelope” on the reef and the local Chief Ibedul helped the English to rebuild their ship. He sent his son Lebuu with Capt. Wilson to England for schooling. Prince ” Lee Boo” died from smallpox 6 months after arriving in London. The British created a melodrama out of this story and it started an increased interest in the Pacific islands at that time.
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Our current location is 7 degrees 30′ North, 133 degrees 30′ East. We are in Koror, Republic of Palau, another island which was bombed by the Americans in 1944. This was a fierce battle between the Japanese and the U.S. and thousands of people died in these beautiful islands. They say, more people died here than live here.
Nowadays it is very peaceful and all tropical paradise. We arrived here 2 days ago and did our first dive day with ” Fish and Fins” dive shop today. We finally found some great diving again. There are walls, big drop-offs, lots of coral and schools of hundreds of tropical fish ! We came pretty close to reef sharks ( fairly harmless ), saw turtles, huge Napolean Wrasses, barracudas, large mackarels and schools of hundreds of tropical fish.
At the ” Blue Corner” dive site, Gabi tried out her new reefhook. We were hanging at the edge of the abyss and peering over the wall into the deep blue with reef sharks chasing smaller fish. Pretty cool for us, not so much for the smaller fish !
Above water, we cruised between the Rock Islands, which are an amazing sight. Hundreds of limestone, mushroom shaped islands with the ocean chewing at their bases. They are covered by dense green rainforest, a nice contrast to the blue sky and turquoise water color. This is finally how we expected the tropical Pacific to look like ! Diving here today was worth carrying all that equipment around the globe ! I probably have nitrogen narcosis by now !