After getting fitted with a BCD, regulator, and dive computer, we were off to our first dive spot of the day: German Channel. It's called this because it was made by the Germans during their occupation for easier transport of the phosphate they got from harvesting bird shit. Totally German, right? At any rate, we were told that we would be diving down, observing a "cleaning station" (which is where fish go to get cleaned by other fish - think the "Car Wash" scene from Finding Nemo). We were told that if we were lucky we may see a Manta Ray and maybe a shark or two. At first I was extremely disappointed because upon descent, we were just sitting on the sandy bottom of this channel. We were far enough away from the cleaning station to hardly see any fish at all (we were told that we had to keep our distance). After about ten minutes of not seeing anything, our guide told us to swim around the outside of the area. After another minute or two, we saw HUGE schools of large fish and about ten or twelve sharks chasing them. I kept my distance from the sharks (obviously) but did manage a few shots of them.
I apologize for the quality of these photos, but they were fairly far away and moving pretty quickly... Not too long after this we did manage to see one ray, but you can't even make it out in the picture I took of it, so I'm not even gonna post it here. After what started out as a fairly boring dive turned into a shorts-changer, we made our way to Jellyfish Lake. Now, I must come clean here for a second and make an admission... The whole reason I wanted to come to Palau was because on Survivor:Palau (which was also where they filmed Survivor:Micronesia aka Survivor:Fans vs. Favorites) there was a reward challenge where the winners got to go to Jellyfish Lake. This lake is small, but is filled with literally MILLIONS of jellyfish. Through time and lack of natural predators, these jellyfish have lost the ability to sting. It looked so amazing on Survivor, that when I saw it, I said to myself, "One day you are going to get to do that." Today was that day.
I don't know if the video will work or not, but I sure do hope so... After swimming through all these jellyfish for awhile, we eventually had to leave for lunch. We stopped at a nearby beach, had lunch, and then headed to our final dive spot of the day, which was a wreck dive. During the Japanese occupation of the island, a civilian ship was hit and eventually sank. The name of the dive site is the name of the wrecked ship: Teshio Maru. I had never dived or seen in person a shipwreck, and the sense of eeriness that overcame me as I first caught a glimpse of this wrecked ship all covered in coral is hard to describe. It was fairly deep, so the pictures didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped, but here are some of the better ones.
Just a spectacular day! After the dive, when we came to the surface, we discovered it was raining. We made a way back to the dive shop, and I had already decided after such a great day of diving, that I would dive every chance I got on this trip, including tomorrow and Friday. To make the most of it, I got certified to dive with Nitrox (enriched oxygen) this afternoon, and will make my first Nitrox dive tomorrow! I am not that experienced a diver (I just got certified during my recent trip to the Great Barrier Reef this past February), and apparently where we are going diving tomorrow is for experienced divers only. The head of the dive shop wasn't going to let me go until the head dive master of the group I was with today came to my aid and said as strong a swimmer and diver that I am, I will have no problems. Based on his strong recommendation, they are letting me go out to or row to this particularly challenging site. I am a bit nervous about it since such a big deal was made out of it, but am encouraged by the very positive things the dive master had to say about my diving ability. If you don't hear back from me tomorrow about it, he was wrong.... Let's hope so! Until then!
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Location:Koror, Palau
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