Day 2: Our first day in Palau

Our first true day in Palau began with breakfast in the Coconut Terrace, an open-air dining room with a beautiful view of the pool and private beach. I must make mention that the staff of PPR is very warm and friendly; everyone greets you with a welcoming smile. We had a delicious breakfast from the menu, but some morning when my appetite has recovered from the traveling we will have to sample from their awesome buffet.


After breakfast, we had some time to kill before meeting up with Mike & Vicki for our morning briefing, so with camera in tow we wandered the beautiful beach and enjoyed the lapping of the warm water upon the creamy soft sands as we viewed the green hills, volcanic rock faces that peek through the greenery, and the aquamarine and turquoise colors of the water. Unfortunately, because internet connection is rather slow here, I may have to wait to share my pictures with you until my return, but we shall see.

Once the group had gathered together and Mike provided us with some of his insight into traveling to Palau we were off for a couple of dives. NECO Marine’s shuttle bus awaited us and our gear and we were driven to their facilities just a brief distance away. Burt, our NECO Marine host and divemaster greeted us at the dock and escorted us to our boat. The shallow-hulled boat is covered with a wonderful canopy to keep you out of the sun, several bench seats are provided for pairs of divers with plenty of dry storage just below them, and your tanks conveniently sit right in front of you. It really is a nicely designed boat with plenty of room for your comfort. I believe Burt said the boats can hold up to 18 divers, but he is happy to accommodate whatever the group size requires and desires, whether it be keeping the group all on one boat or splitting it up into smaller groups, depending on the number of people in your party. We, thankfully, were only 10, including Burt and the boat captain, Ray, which gave us plenty of room to stretch out and wander.

Our first dive of the day was at “Saies Corner” which is this beautiful wall with abundant life to drift along. The color and variety of the fish is mind boggling and the corals were so beautiful. As Burt had instructed us in our dive briefing, we drifted along until we came to the end of the wall, then we hooked ourselves in with our reef hooks and dangled in the current as we watched the reef sharks approach and swim in and out of the schools of fish that passed us by. Of course those of you who have dove with me know that I was more fascinated by the fish than the sharks, but it was wonderful to see these creatures just cruising around in their environment. After a little while we all detached ourselves from the reef and drifted along a bit as we ascended to our safety stop. Wow! What a welcome to the underwater world of Palau.

A diligent captain, Ray had spotted Burt’s signal sausage as we drifted up, and the boat was waiting for us as we surfaced. Once onboard again, Ray took us to a shallow, calm spot amongst the reefs and we enjoyed our delicious “bento box” lunches during our surface interval. A bento box is a combination of rice with your choice of meat (chicken, fish, beef), tofu or veggies, with a side of fruit and some chips thrown in too. It hits the spot after a dive.



After lunch, we went to the “Ulong Channel” for our second dive. As the name indicates, this is a sandy, open channel between two beautiful coral reefs. You begin your dive drifting along the reef viewing the spectacular variety of fish. The highlight of the dive for me was the giant groupers that enjoy hanging out along this reef. To me these large creatures are like the bulldogs of the underwater with those big lips and serious faces. They are so adorable. We followed Burt along the reef and passed over the channel to the reef on the other side where again we just parked ourselves as we watched the sharks approach and swim away. After a few minutes, we swam back into the channel and drifted along in the current enjoying the sights on either side of us. Just as we approached the end of our dive, we caught the delightful sight of a lone turtle cruising along in the channel. Then it was up to the surface and time to cruise on back home for some time to clean up and relax before dinner.

Burt, the consummate host, had arranged for our group to eat dinner at a local Japanese restaurant, so at the appointed time we all gathered on the bus and were off. We ate our fill family style, sampling a wide variety of dishes from the menu that Vicki and Burt suggested for us. It was delicious and the company enjoyable, but as it approached 9pm we all were beginning to get tired so it was time to return to PPR and call it an evening. SWEET DREAMS!