Palau: March 28 - April 5

Introduction:

Wow Palau! This place was such a wonderful experience we felt we needed to try something a little bit different in the journaling department in order to do it justice. As a result instead of the typical day by day journaling (which is difficult to keep up when you are on a small boat with several other people), we decided to let everybody do their own summary on their Palau Experience!

As background, we spent the night of the 27 th at Narita Airport Excel Hotel after successfully negotiating the Japanese Shinkansen lines for the last time. The hotel was just mediocre but we only had to stay one night. It was also Brian’s birthday which we celebrated in a low key fashion with a dinner at the equivalent of a Japanese Denny’s. The food was good though and about 5 times cheaper than at the hotel where they wanted $18 for a plate of noodles!

The next morning we headed out to the airport early. We were booked on a Northwest Airlines flight to Guam and then on a connecting Continental flight into Palau. The first flight was uneventful with most of the 3 hours spent filling out the thousands of forms and visa waiver stuff we were told we needed when we arrived at Guam. The ticket agents in Narita couldn’t book us all the way through to Palau because of the switch in airlines. We had a 4 hr layover in Guam so we weren’t expecting any problems in getting our second boarding passes.

The first thing we noticed on landing in Guam was that we were back in the USA. It was just like a miniature version of Hawaii. They were even playing Hawaiian music! Immigration threw our forms away when we got there, as being Canadians we only had to fill out the customs forms that US citizens had to use. We breezed through and got rechecked in record time. As the line through security was enormous, we opted to wait out the crowd in a nearby cafe. The kids saw fries and other North American food that they hadn’t seen in 6 months on the menu and went a little wild. After multiple purchases of French fries (and a couple of laughing waitresses), we had our fill and proceeded to kill some time shopping at the duty free. Our Continental flight was a little late taking off as we waited for some connecting passengers but the 2 hour flight to Palau went by quickly. Debbie discovered that her seatmate, one of the late arriving passengers, was actually Sam of “Sam’s Tours”. He was the owner of the charter company through which we booked our boat. He was coming from New Jersey and had been traveling for a long time. We got into our hotel for the night in Koror (the capital) and were happy to find that we had been upgraded to a suite which was wonderful. That night and the next morning were spent repacking everything for the next 6 days.

For those of you who don’t know about Palau, it is a small country in Micronesia made up of hundreds of little islands largely surrounded by a huge 16 mile diameter reef structure. It is all by itself in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean almost due north of New Guinea and several hours flight time from just about anywhere. They have a population of only 20,000 who mostly live on eight of the islands. Historically they were under the governance of the US but in 1994, Palau gained its independence. However the American influence was very apparent from the use of the US dollar to the terrific hamburgers, nachos and doughnuts available in the restaurants. Driving was on the right side of the road but a lot of their cars were purchased second hand from Japan with right hand drives. So at least half of the drivers drove from the “wrong” seat. We kept trying to get in on the wrong side of the vehicle as well. Traditionally rule in Palau was maintained by a clan system and today’s government reflects this. In the tiny country of Palau, there are 16 states with some of them having populations as low as 39.

Palau is known in the diving community as one of the last unspoiled reefs in the world and is consistently named as the world’s top dive spot. It is also known more recently from hosting Survivor Palau much to Brian’s dismay! He feared an onslaught of tourists and crowded conditions during our week on the island. We were here for the water and lots of it. We had opted for a 6 day private sailboat charter on board the Eclipse, with its skipper John McCready, his wife Charley (chef extraordinaire and dive master) and Harry. The last crew member was another dive master who was on board to help out as John had recently broken his foot and wasn’t very mobile. The Eclipse is a 48 foot open ocean racing yacht, built in the mid 70’s that had been re-outfitted for dive charters and came complete with ocean kayaks etc. (To reach them email John at saildive@palaunet.com.)

Our primary destination for sailing was the southernmost section of the reef and the mushroom shaped rock islands that are all around it. This area was home to three of the most famous dive sites in the world, Blue Corner, New Drop Off, and Blue Holes, all of which are located within a couple of miles of each other. The sites center on a large underwater plateau that ranges from 40-60 feet deep on the outside of the reef. A long narrow underwater promontory extends further south, with a vertical wall that drops from 60 feet to over 1400 feet in depth. What makes the wall and the corner special is that it sticks out smack dab in the middle of the very volatile Pacific current. The water smashes into the wall creating huge currents and updrafts, sweeping huge amounts of food up to the surface. This food attracts tremendous numbers of fish and shark that are attracted to the large schools. During our six days of diving we saw well over 500 sharks, 60-70 turtle, had close encounters with dolphins, eels and saw some of the largest and prettiest fish ever. The boys got in over fifteen dives and usually ended up collapsing into bed each night by 8:00 only to get up and start diving again the next day before 7:00 am!

The food was spectacular. None of us ever expected to get the 5 star quality we got, aboard a 48 foot ship with a somewhat small kitchen but Charley was amazing. As good as the food was in China, Charley surpassed everything we had eaten over the last several weeks in Asia. The weather also co-operated and with all the sun, we all ended up a little red at one time or another. Now with the intro over, onto the main event! ( NEXT PAGE )