Day 7: Touring Babeldaob

(I forgot to mention on my previous post, sorry for the delay, but we were experiencing some difficulties with our computer, thus you get 3 days of blogs for the price of 1...enjoy!)
Once again we began our day with a class session with Mike Musto. Our focus was on how traveling with your friends from your local dive shop was far superior to traveling on your own by booking over the internet. First and foremost, as a qualified dive travel specialist, we can provide you with the information and contacts you need to make your vacation an enjoyable and successful vacation. Next we continued on with the history of Micronesia, but soon it was time for us to go for our final day of diving.


Our first dive of the day was at a site called “New Drop Off”. The one and only site Jacques Cousteau ever dived at in Palau, this site offered us another nice dive along a wall with a gentle current carrying us past plenty of life 80’ and above. I chose to lighten my camera of its strobes and shot some video as I cruised along. The highlight of this dive for me, other than what now has become for me the usual colorful characters and stealthy reef sharks, was the large hawksbill turtle that sat atop the reef. Bert had tapped me on the shoulder and indicated for me to follow him. To my pleasure he pointed out this gentle creature who just sat there resting as schools of fish soared by. Then moments later, he lifted his head and began to swim up to break the surface of the water. I was captivated by his grace and just floated there above the reef watching him glide effortlessly through the water.

Soon we surfaced to eat our lunch and listen to Bert regale stories of the days when he lived in the Caribbean. Our surface interval complete, Ray boated us off to the next site – “Turtle Wall”. The site lived up to its name. As we caught another gentle current to cruise this wall face, we spotted a number of turtles resting or cruising along with us. Rod and I chose to dive without either of our cameras, so I was happy to spot a few things out for Linda Hannifan from Family Scuba Center in Midland, Texas. I was successful in finding a puffer fish, a nudibranch and a moray eel for her to take a picture of. At the end of the dive, as we rose, you could see a reef shark sailing above this reef in about 4 feet of crystal clear water.

Once everyone was onboard again, we were off for a 50 minute ride from this site to “Chandelier Cave”. Found in a quiet cover near the island of Koror, Chandelier Cave is an underwater cavern system with 4 primary chambers where a diver goes underwater to enter each chamber and then is able to rise to the water’s surface and remove his regulator to breathe the cavern air as you observe the beautiful stalactites formed from the limestone. Again, another first for me, I can now say I am no longer a cave diver virgin.

As usual, back to PPR to relax and clean up for dinner. Tonight’s dinner was hosted by Shallum and Mandy Etpison, owners of NECO Marine, at one of their many businesses, the Cliffside Hotel. The meal and the company were as delicious as we have come to expect since staying here in Palau. We have come once again to the end of another delightful day in paradise. GOOD NIGHT!