Palau by Don

Palau, 1999
Author: Don

Palau is a phenomenal place. Water 84-87 F, (about 29-30C) year round. Clear water, normally flat seas year round.

They have a lot of fantastic marine life. We saw big packs of 20 or more white tips, along with many large jacks, and giant trevalys, all hunting over the reef together. We saw black tips, and greys and lepard sharks being cleaned. We saw hawksbill turtles, mantas, cuttlefish, octopi, seahorses, 4 or 5 kinds of pipefish, mandarin fish by the truckload, dozens of kinds of shrimp gobies, sea anemones with clown fish, lion fish, scorpions, leaf scorpions, and nearly every kind of butterfly, angel (including flame), tang, wrasse, parrot, trigger and file fish there is.

We saw zillions of kinds of corals and soft corals and sea fans, giant clams, etc. etc. Lots of shrimps, crabs, and lobsters. We did wall dives, reef dives, wreck dives, and fast flying up channel dives at 4 or 5 knots.

The variety was endless. The first 3 times at Blue Corner, I ran out of film after 30 minutes, and I took only seriously good photo-ops! Absolutely mind blowing. I was sure I had died and gone to heaven.

There doesn't seem to be much reason to go on live-aboards there, since they just do the same dive spots that all the land based boats frequent. The only difference is that you can get 4 or 5 dives/day on a live-aboard, rather than the 3 per day, plus occasional night dives, that we got in.

The well known dive shops there - Sam's, and Necco, all use over-powered large boston whaler type boats, which can be a rough trip out, and which give little or no room and facilities for uw-photogs. Sam's uses smaller boats - about 8 people max, and has a reputation of having pretty good dive guides, some of whom are marine biologists. Necco uses much bigger boats - about 20+ people.

A much better deal, especially for uw-photogs, is with Dive Palau. This is small operation, with one guy the manager and main dive master, Keith Santillano. They are the "Dive Makai" of Palau. i.e. they go slow or stopped, observe everything, know where all the interesting and rare critters are, and what the interesting behaviors are. The boat is a wonderful small cabin cruiser, (with a toilet and hot shower!), cabin top bench seating, plenty of room, and well setup for diving. Very good lunches and drinks. Great boat captain, and deck hands. Just a total joy to dive with.

Keith has been diving Palau for 10 years, and is the type who loves it so much he never gets burned out, but even goes out to dive when there is no business in the slow season. He took us to all the fantastic well known spots like blue holes and blue corner, as well as at least one spot that only he goes to, where you can reliably find seahorses! He asked us what we wanted to shoot, and then we found it for us. No problems. I can't say enough good things about his operation, and recommend it as highly as possible.

Check out:

http://www.palaudive.com/

We'd go back in a second!

Happy diving.

Don