Palau.

I know i should be writing about the philippines but i just need to insert this in; because of all the dive destinations in the world, there is one that comes up more than others. A place like no other, to see action like no other. There are grey reef sharks, Manta rays, turtles, leopard sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks just to name a few of its under water wonders. A place where on most days the current is pushing you faster and faster towards the open ocean. yet thousands if not hundreds of thousands of divers come here annually to jump in and see what lies beneath. The mystic place i'm referring to is without question Palau.

In 2007 I was lucky enough to have been accepted to go and work on Palau's cheapest live aboard the eco explorer. She was an old boat with 20 rooms most of them too small for a queen sized bed. with a crew of 16 plus 5 DM's and a Boat manager. She was no luxury live aboard, but she would be the platform for some of the best dives of my life. I would live on her, and eventually manage her for the 8 months. And diving wise, it was the best diving of my diving career.

Palau had 22 major sites;German Channel, Big drop off, New drop off, dexter's wall, blue corner, Peleliu corner, Peleliu Cut, Yellow Wall, Peleliu Express, Blue hole, Virgin blue hole, Turtle wall, Ngedbus wall, Ulong channel, Siaes Corner, Siaes tunnel, Ngerchong, the iro maru, chandelier cave, mandarin fish lake, and jellyfish lake. (i will blog about the best ones individually later on.)

I dove them extensively the 8 months i was there and there was never a dull moment. Living on a live aboard meant we were to do 5 dives a day, and given that we were short on guides i did almost all the dives we offered while i resided in Palau. It was 8mos of diving, just diving there was really nothing else.

Diving in Palau is technical, i mean this not in the mixed gasses sort of way but in a timing and tide sort of way. It is not like the philippines where you can just jump in on one side of the dive site on an incoming tide and another side of the site on the out going tide.

Site selection in palau depends heavily on the tide tables and the timing should be followed religiously. Sites are either incoming tide sites or out going tide sites, there is no in between here. Dive Masters knowledge of this is a must or you will spend most of your dives fighting insane currents and missing all hook in points and points of interest. So if your DM tells you the group cant do blue corner twice in a row don't be mad, he's just making sure you have the best possible palau experience the truth is deep down inside he probably wants to do it again but knows the tides wont be right.

From the strong currents at Peleliu, to descents into caverns at blue holes and Siaes tunnel, to the exhilarating hook ons at blue corner, and just sitting on the sand at german channel there is almost never a bad dive in Palau and the only limit is the divers air consumption.

There are many land based operators but hands down liveaboards are still the best way to dive Palau, The 1 hour ride out and back to the dive sites from land based facilities is a pain and why do 2 dives a day at one of the best dive destinations in the world when for a little more money you can do 5.


For more information email m.santos@bluewaterexpeditions.net