After a 15 hour flight from Hong Kong, and a bit of rest,  here is the trip report.

Logged 14 dives in total, most being wall dives along some of the best coral reefs
I've ever seen. I wish you could see them as well, but alas, I'm sorry to say my U/W
camera flooded on the very first dive!  UGGGHHHH!. I salvaged 11 shots on the SD
card, but that was it and none of them worth showing. Oh well, all the more reason to
return at some point. Sites Visited included

    1) Blue Corner & Blue Holes (twice)
    2) Big Drop Off
    3) Barnum's Wall
    4) Yellow Wall (Peleliu)
    5) Peleliu Wall
    6) Ngedebus Coral Garden
    7) Turtle Cove
    8) Saies Corner and Saies Tunnel (Deepest Dive to date @ 108 FSW)
    9) Chandelier Cave (A true cave dive)
    10) Helmet Wreck (A WWII Japanese Transport Wreck with Penetrate points)

Total Logged Dives now at 60 even, and picked up both Master Scuba Diver cert and "Blue Corner"
specialty ratings. But I also picked up a good deal of needed knowledge and confidence. I learned
a lot about diving in strong currents and how to use a reef hook. The zooplankton concentration
makes it easy to determine current direction, speed and flow, as well as your own orientation vs.
the wall. Unfortunately, it also makes the viz bad, but.... (I've been told it (the zooplankton)
is extraordinarily high this year due to the current upwellings from the deep).

The way the currents flow at blue corner change quickly as you travel along it (of course, driven
by lunar cycles and tidal changes etc.). At one point (when you come out of the blue holes onto the
blue corner wall) you might be swimming against the current but half way through it may change and
become turbulent and then all of a sudden you find yourself swimming with the current and very quickly
(ie. you look at the wall and watch your life flashing before your eyes type of thing). At this point
you might have to hook in with your reef hook. This is especially true if you're on top of the wall
plateau where the currents get stronger. So you hook in as close as you can to the shelf and watch
all the plageics go by. Not as many of those as in Bora Bora though, but then again, I probably didn't
see them as well with the viz being what it was (I need to get a prescription mask) and also, in
Bora Bora, they do shark feedings whereas this practice is discouraged in Palau.

Sam's Dive Tours was my shop and the DM's here were the absolute best. All were quite knowledgeable
about the sites and about diving itself, and were easy going. All the boat captains were local
Palauan's (I was told by law apparently only Palauan's can be licensed to operate commercial boats
but I doubt this because I saw one of the boat licenses which listed all the operators and several
of them were non-Palauan). Dive Ops are the same here as in Bora Bora. The DM leads the dive in the
water (almost always a drift dive) and at the end, the DM Raises his/her safety sausage and people
drift along with it at 15FSW to do their safety stop etc. As the boat sees people surface near the
sausage, it goes to pick them up. In fact, they get pissed when you try to chase after the boat
since the boat captain can lose sight of you.  They stress that you wait for it to come get you.

Ratio is 8 divers to 1 DM. Thus 9+ divers on one boat = 2 DMs (More than 10 and I think they'll opt
for an additional boat - they have a fleet of 8 fast boats with dual 10 Average dive time is 50
minutes, which was a bit longer than I've been used to, especially on an 80cf Nitrox tank,  so
after having come up the 1st few times at 40-45 min., they switched me to 100CF Nitrox tanks, thus
letting me complete the dives with the group (longest dive I did was 57min.).

And in case of emergency, The hospital is only 1/4 mile away from the Palau Pacific Resort (where I
stayed) and has a full state of the art facility including recompresion chamber etc. One guy I met at
the hotel even told me he had injured his ankle, and as it turns out the only orthopod on the island
took him immediately and did the surgery in 2 days! He didn't even have to go back home! Of course,
he couldn't dive anymore either but......

Jellyfish Lake

I did get to swim in it, although it was in the morning and very sunny so not too many Jellyfish were
at the surface but enough to make it a fascinating experience. You can only snorkel in it. You wouldn't
want to dive anyway because at 50FBW (brackish) there's a bacterial layer that turns the water pitch
black. Below that, there is no Oxygen present and the resultant by product is a high concentration of
Hydrogen Sulfide that his quite toxic to humans. I'm told they did an experiment where a researcher sent
down a 7mm wetsuit with reg and BC on a mannequin into the Hydrogen Sulfide layer for 2 minutes. WHen they
hauled it up, the wetsuit had significant holes in it and the hardware was completely corroded! May or
may not be true, but I don't think I'll be testing it. But the real reasons why you can't scuba are
twofold 1) the bubbles scare the jellyfish; and 2) the finning action can actually kill them if they're
too concentrated and you kick too hard and decapitate them. I did my best only to use  and movements an
not kick when I was heavily into the thick of them. Oh, and when you arrive there, the "mastigas" jellyfish
are *virtually* stingless according to the signs posted. These Jellyfish lost their inherent ability to
sting as they became isolated from all predators and prey alike, and had to use the algae around them
for food. The same species found in open waters do still sting though I didn't use a skin at all and felt
nothing, and most people I'm told only feel a very mild sensation around their lips if that.  However, If
you're hypersensitive to stings, you may want to think twice about swimming with them.

The Islands

I did not get to see much of the interior of Palau but what I saw of the costal areas and the Rock
Islands was absolutely beautiful, giving Bora Bora strong competition (see land pictures on my
website to be posted shortly). Koror itself seems to have all the comforts of home but with a little
"island" charm. Currency is the US$ and electricity is the US standard. Oh, and to get this out of
the way: "How much is GAS in this area???"  $3.11/gal.

Peleliu

Went on a land tour of Peleliu Island after the two dives. It has a significant WWII history. We were
taken to "Orange Beach," upon which the American Allied forces did an amphibious assault very similar
to the "Omaha Beach" assault in France. In this case, "D-Day" was 09/15/1944 at 08:00am local time.
The US Army 81st Infantry division took the lead. There are many memorials and a burial site but
the Army has since re-located the bodies of the Americans/allies who died in the battle to a military
cemetery in the Philippines. There may still be Japanese casualties buried there but it is unknown.
According to the guide, the Japanese casualties were as many as 15 times that of the Americans
due to the lack of medical care and facilities (which Americans/Allies had on the boats - or transport
to facilities via the boats).  You can see some of the pictures of the island on my web site as soon
as I get them published there.

The People

The people are absolutely friendly. Many here chew beetle nuts so you see a lot of signs saying "No
spitting" and "Wash your hands with soap and water" etc. But as friendly as they may be, they're also
protective of their lands. I am told that only native born Palauan's can own land or own a business
as well (or for a partnership, at least one of the partners must be a Palauan). Thus, in order for an
American or other foreigner to have property or a business, they must marry a Palauan (and then it's
the Palauan spouse that gets to own the land/business) or if they have a child, the property can be
listed in the child's name (as long as one of the parents is Palauan). Not that it matters to most of
us, but......

Summary - Overall one fantastic trip - Will go again in another 2 years after I finish paying for
this trip :-). But more than that, I'm a little bit better diver and that's worth so much more.  Will post the
pictures I took above water on my website shortly. I look forward diving the "grove" with all the local
Floridians soon.
____________________________________________
Regards,

Arnold

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