Palau Aggressor (9/10/98 - 9/20/98)

Author: Robert Carson Godbey

My wife, Ellen, and I spent a week on the Palau Aggressor. It was a spectacular scuba diving, with sights that included profuse schools of tropical fish, sharks on almost every dive, rays, giant clams, cuttlefish, turtles, large pelagics, and an amazing array of corals, sponges, and invertebrates. The weather was hot and humid, uncomfortably so if one was not in air conditioning or the ocean during the heat of the day. The seas were calm and very warm (84-86, no wetsuits needed), although there are strong currents in many areas.

We live in Hawaii and are experienced open water divers in our mid-40s; we are in fair, but not great, physical shape and do not have any advanced rating or training. Palau is wonderful diving, although in my opinion not for the novice diver, even with an instructor. A diver died while we were there, as I will describe below, due to the inexperience of another diver. Our dives were safe and spectacular, however, and I recommend Palau as a dive destination for the experienced diver.

It is hard to get to Palau, even from Honolulu. It is an eight hour flight to Guam, and two hours from there to Palau, by Continental. We arranged to leave around noon Wednesday and arrive in Palau Friday night (due to the International Date Line). We stayed at the Palau Pacific Resort (PPR). PPR is quite nice, and has wonderful snorkeling in the bay in front of the hotel. Rooms were about $200. Arriving early gave us all day Saturday to relax and to visit Koror, the major city in Palau. Other divers on the Aggressor who did not grab a day to get oriented mentioned that they regretted that decision. PPR has good rooms, good food, and great air conditioning in the rooms (set on "stun" when you walk in). Koror feels like a rural town on the windward side of one of the Hawaiian islands, and seems relaxed and friendly.

We got on the Aggressor Sunday night, when many of our group arrived. There is dinner and a brief orientation. The crew wears uniforms the first night, which you won't see again for the remainder of the trip! The boat is a 106' cat that sleeps 16 divers. We had nine divers and a snorkeler in a group, including our group leader, Paul Sheriff, a divemaster and owner of New World Divers in Honolulu. Paul uses a wheelchair. The Palau Aggressor is not accessible (although other ships in the Aggressor fleet are). Paul is remarkable, however, and muscled his way around just fine; the crew was great, both in providing Paul whatever assistance he needed and in taking care of the rest of us.

The cabins are good, with a comfortable queen sized bed and a single bunk above. All are air-conditioned and have private toilets and showers. Generally the public facilities were very nice. The food was good and plentiful. The crew consisted of five divers and two lovely Palauan ladies who cooked and maintained the boat. There is plenty of room on board to relax, and Palau is gorgeous from the water. The boat is beautifully set up for diving. Most of the dives are from a well equipped skiff that loads on the back of the Aggressor and is lowered into the water by a hydraulic system. It then takes the divers to the dive site, picks them up, and returns them to the Aggressor for showers, hot towels, and a snack or meal before the next dive.

The first day of diving was pretty easy, and a good way to shake out the various equipment problems most folks seemed to have. The crew was great about fixing various problems, but good equipment is important. A computer is essential. Nitrox was available (with Nitrox certification classes for those who wanted to learn to use Nitrox), as well as the help of a photo pro and E6 processing for those shooting slide film.

The next day was extraordinary. We went to Blue Corner, a legendary dive site, and had a "good day at the Corner," as one crew member said. Huge schools of large jacks, barracuda, and other deep water fish, and lots of sharks. You "clip" into the reef (with a reef hook provided by the crew) and just hang there and watch the schools of astounding fish ride the current. I count that dive as one of life's great experiences, akin to seeing a solar eclipse or the volcano erupting. The rest of the dives were good, but that dive was worth the trip in itself for me. (We did other dives at the Corner, and they were great, but did not have the large pelagics we saw on the first dive at the Corner.)

I won't go through each day's dives. The book "Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Palau" (by Tim Rock and Francis Toribiong, available through Amazon.com) describes the various dive spots better than I can, and with pictures. We made most, but not all, of the dives described in that book. Generally, diving in Palau is fun because of the great richness of the life there. It has wonderful soft corals and invertebrates, giant clams, sharks, rays, and anemones. It has three times as many species of fishes as those found in Hawaii. The dives are generally either wall dives or drift dives. The walls and coral reefs are spectacular. One advantage of a live aboard boat is that you get to do more dives and can reach some places difficult to reach by day boat. Visibility seemed to average about 60 feet, although we had a few 100+ dives, and some with less than 20 or 30 feet of visibility. The richness of the marine life is due in part, we were told, to the nutrients in the water, which can limit visibility.

This is not a place for a novice diver, in my opinion. While we were there, another live aboard, the Palau Sport, lost a diver at Blue Corner. The Palau Sport generally caters to Japanese divers; if Hawaii is a guide, this can include less experienced divers. They seem to exercise great care with their guests. As I understand the situation from second-hand reports, four divers were out with three guides. The third guide generally pulls a marker float, so the group is visible to the boat. On this dive, apparently the downcurrents on the wall began to pull the guests down at the end of the dive. Two guides went down to get the guests at about 100 feet. They came back with three of them but missed one. They sent the third guide down to rescue her. He was not a divemaster and was not trained in rescue diving, and was at the end of his tank. By the time he got to her she was down to about 210 feet and he was out of air. He inflated her BC and she says she remembered him breathing on her octopus for at least part of the way up. She surfaced, with air in her tank to spare, and he did not surface with her. She claims she does not remember the last half of her ascent, and does not know why he was no longer with her. The Aggressor joined in the search for him that night, but when we left the body had not been found.

Downcurrents can be dangerous. The September issue of Undercurrent discusses some typical risks. It seems to me, however, that this problem was more likely that of a group of novice divers that weren't watching depth. The guest's BC, when properly inflated, seems to have been sufficient to bring her back from 210 feet; the problem seems to be that she didn't hit it. I think it also shows that a novice diver can endanger not only herself, but those with her.

The variety of fantastic things to see on a Palau wall dive is truly amazing and can contribute to sensory overload. It is easy for even an experienced diver to forget to check gauges. The good dives we did were all technically complex, involving walls, currents, and the like. This should not scare away an experienced diver. On our boat, the crew was excellent and the dives were safe. You don't have to be a divemaster or an instructor to dive and enjoy Palau. On the other hand, in my opinion, it is not the place to start your open water diving.

Apparently most guests on the Palau Aggressor make five dives a day. Our group was more relaxed, and did an average of three or four dives each per day. I think that made the trip more relaxing for the guests and the crew alike. I gather that is a bit unusual, however.

The Rock Islands of Palau are beautiful and remarkable. Little muffin-shaped islands floating in Pacific blue. Jellyfish lake is a saltwater lake filled with stingerless jellyfish; a snorkel there is a unique and memorable event.

If you have not done a live aboard, they are generally a luxurious and expensive way to dive. The Palau Aggressor is one of the best. Even so, you should know that there are a few things that seem endemic. There is a constant drone from the genset, which produces the electricity for the boat. It is easy for staterooms and clothing to pick up a "wet sea" smell. Leaving the boat takes a couple days of readjustment for the inner ears.

After a week of diving we returned to Koror. Ellen and I took a room at the PPR again. You clear the boat at 7:30 Sunday morning, but the flight to Honolulu via Guam does not leave until 2:40 in the morning on Monday. The airport in Koror is not a place to hang out all day, so I recommend a room somewhere.

It was quite an adventure. I recommend it to experienced divers.