Palau/Yap

Republic of Palau &
Yap, Federated States of Micronesia
April 20th - May 6, 2000

Leaving Nashua at 4:00 AM on Thursday to head to Boston in a daze, from there to New Jersey, then a direct flight to Honolulu, Hawaii. Ten hours, 3 movies, 2 meals and a snack later we got to Honolulu. We had two days to rest up for the rest of the long journey onward to Palau.

Oahu probably wouldn't be my first choice for a vacation destination. Much too crowded, too many high-rises. We did visit the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, and the U.S.S. Missouri (the "Mighty Mo") whilst there, and it was very enjoyable and enlightening. We also took a helicopter ride over Diamond Head, Rabbit Island, Hanauma Bay, Pearl Harbor, etc... of course I did some shopping, you know that.

www.aggressor.com/pa_home.html
This is the fleet we dove with while in Palau. It was the first time Dan and I did a liveaboard.

We crossed the International Date Line, and Saturday quickly turned into Sunday. We left Honolulu for Guam at 1:45pm got 2 movies, lunch, dinner and lots of liquids on this flight, we got our connection to Palau at 6:30pm. Flight time was 1:10 from Guam to Koror, Palau.

Palau (pronounced: Belau)became an independent nation in October 1994. This marked the end of the U.S. administered Trust Territory of the Pacific and ended the last 50 years of the United States' colonial rule over the islands. Spain sold Palau to Germany, who took control of the islands in 1899 and that lasted until the Japanese showed up and occupied the islands from 1914 until the end of WW II. During this time the Palauan's culture went through some dramatic changes. The Japanese fervently tried to replace local customs with a colonial administration. They opened public schools and taught the islanders a subservient dialect of the Japanese language, and the village chiefs lost power to Japanese bureaucrats. Essentially the islanders became slaves, their customs and traditions were destroyed and their land was either sold or confiscated. When the US began to run Palau after WW II, it hoped to blend Palau in with the rest of Micronesia to become one political existence. But in July 1978 the islanders voted to create their own political voice and not become part of the Federated States of Micronesia.

Most of the 15,500 Palauan's live in Koror and by Micronesian standards, it's a very busy place. The native name for the islands is Belau, but the nation refers to itself as the Republic of Palau. Rumor has it that the Hawaii-based Outrigger hotel chain, the Hilton and the Hyatt all plan to build resorts here. This will more than double Palau's current hotel offerings. Palau currently averages 40,000 visitors a year. Once the big hotels/resorts open, that will be history...

Palau measures 93 miles in length and 18 miles across at its widest point. It is one of the most unspoiled natural wonders of the world. Over 200 rock islands, most covered with lush, green foliage, create a spectacular maze of reefs and waterways. Palau's underwater marvels are both natural and man-made.

"According to Palauan legend, in ancient times an island woman gave birth to a son named Uab who grew so quickly and had such an insatiable appetite that it soon became the primary chore of the islanders to keep the boy fed. The more they fed him the more food he demanded and the larger he grew, until one day he was taller than the coconut trees and had eaten all the food on the island.

The villagers reluctantly decided they must destroy the giant boy in order to survive and one night set fire to the men's meeting house where he slept. Uab's bloated body exploded and parts of it were flung in all directions. Kayangel was created from his head, Babeldaob from his body, Peleliu from his legs, Anguar from his feet and all the little Rock Islands from his fingers and toes. The people then settled the new islands believing that as they had fed Uab, he would now feed them."

We arrived at the Palau airport in Koror around 7:40pm on Sunday, April 23rd. Mike & Hector from the Aggressor Fleet were there to greet us and take us to the boat. It was about a 20 minute ride out to the marina. We met with the Captain, Brian, and he told us about the schedule for the week, and said if there was anything we wanted to change, just let him know. It was a tough schedule:

Wow! We're here finally, after 2+ years of anticipation and planning. Slept great on this fabulous, luxurious boat! Got up around 6:30 and had a large and filling breakfast, then went down to the lower level for our dive briefing. Our first dive site was called Lion Fish Rock and we were all ready and psyched. It was a great dive. I saw a lion fish, a couple of white tip sharks, a HUGE cuttlefish, a hawksbill turtle, 3 big clams and tons of sea cucumbers! The visibility was good, at least 100', the water was nice and warm: 84º Fahrenheit - in other words: HEAVEN. Maximum depth went to 107' and total bottom time was about 65 minutes.

2nd Dive site: Big Drop Off -11:00AM, Lots of soft coral in pristine condition. Another turtle, lots of sharks, longsnout butterfly fish, tons of trigger fish, lots of fish everywhere, Moorish Idols everywhere.

3rd Dive site: Ngedebus -3:10PM, Another great dive, another turtle, tons of fish, whew, getting tired. TBT: 44min., Max Depth: 55'.

Had wine with dinner, so I couldn't do the last dive, which was a night dive. That was okay, I was pretty well beat by this time. Slept great.

Up early, had another big breakfast (we never went hungry, Pat, our chef, always had way more than we could eat), blueberry pancakes with boysenberry syrup, sausage, bacon, eggs... yum! Ready for our first dive at 7:30AM.

Dive site: Barracks Point - Vis was around 70' or so, not quite as good as yesterday. Saw a 5' Giant Tridacna Clam, this thing was incredible, I very nearly could have fit in this monster-sized clam (minus SCUBA gear, of course). It was so beautiful. Because of it's grand size, it's not able to close up completely, so they're harmless to humans, there'll be no getting snapped up by one of these big guys. Saw some beautiful Starfish, tons of Moorish Idols, a plethora of hard and soft corals, a Batfish and a weird sea snake/worm thingy. Maximum depth: 110', total bottom time: 60minutes, water temp, still 84º

2nd Dive site: Peleliu Corner -10:30AM, Dan and I started diving Nitrox today, made a big difference aprés dives: didn't get that drowsy feeling. This was a reef hook dive. I was a bit wary about how I'd do on this dive. The plan was to go along the wall at about 90-100' where the current was barely negligible, then start to ascend to the top of wall and have our hooks out and ready to hook into a rock or dead coral as the current started sweeping us up and away. I was worried I might not hook-up and miss the dive. Well I got hooked up no problem (other than a little sting from a soft coral), and had a ball! The current was about 3 knots and it was screaming!!! I put some air in my BC and turned into a human kite. This was an excellent dive. With the strong current, the pelagics came in from the open sea, and we saw tons of White Tip Sharks, Gray Reef and Black Tip Sharks. Some were as big as 8-10'. This was probably the best dive of my life. It was exciting and new and very stimulating. We all wanted to go back. The visibility was about 40-50', TBT: 44min., Max Depth: 96'.

3rd Dive site: Peleliu Corner - 2:00PM, Well it was so much fun this morning, we all agreed we should do it again. The current wasn't nearly as strong as it was in the morning (which is always the case - earlier is better for tides and such), but it was still a great dive. But nowhere near as exciting as the 1st time. We still saw a lot of sharks, a turtle, a green Moray eel, another Lion fish, Clown fish in anemones and lots of Bumphead Parrot fish. The visibility was still around 40'. TBT: 56min., Max Depth: 77', water temp: 84º

4th Dive site: Orange Beach - 4:30PM, Yep, more sharks, anemones with clown fish, turtles, butterfly fish, corals, beautiful. TBT:44min., Max Depth: 54', water temp: 86º.

Didn't do the night dive. (One woman in our group, Nancy, didn't miss a single dive. Bless her, she's got stamina! She did all 25 dives this week! That's a LOT of diving.)

1st Dive site: Blue corner/Blue Holes - 7:30AM, Well the dive started out okay, but very quickly the current changed and we were working against it. I was having a very difficult time trying to make any headway. I kept as close to the bottom as I could, but to no avail. I wasn't getting anywhere. We all were struggling. I wimped out about a 1/3 of the way through. I was exhausted fighting the current. Did see a big turtle and a large grouper and then I called it quits, did my safety stop and was back on the boat in 29 minutes, managed to get to 106', and the water temp was 84º. This was the shortest and worst dive I had all week.

2nd Dive site: Blue Holes - 10:30AM, Much better the second time around, the current didn't mess with us and remained going the same why throughout the dive. Saw lots of sharks again (they're getting boring by now), 2 Eagle rays, a huge Napoleon wrasse (I had no idea a wrasse could be so large!), and beautifully colored anemones and anemone fish. The swim throughs on this dive were awesome. It was much better this time around. It was a bit further down from where we were for the first morning dive today. I think I got to around 80' for about an hour.

3rd Dive site: New Drop Off -2:30PM, Great dive, more Gray reef sharks, anemones, Napoleon Wrasse, Moray eels, lots of strange sea cucumbers, cleaning stations everywhere. TBT:61min., Max Depth: 63', water temp 84º.

4th Dive site: Turtle Cove - 4:30PM, I really enjoyed this dive, it wasn't just a wall dive. It had lots of nice sandy outcroppings and coral heads. Saw a few different, colorful Starfish, and a Devil Scorpian fish. Wow, this thing really blended into his environment. If he hadn't made a slight move, or I wasn't paying attention, I'd have never seen it. I was watching a little black Starfish, comtemplating picking it up (I know I'm not supposed to, but it was sooo cute!), and the Scorpian fish shifted a bit; startled me actually. Dan gave me his video camera, and I was lucky enough to film him snapping up a small fish. My taping skills are a lot shaky, but it's still pretty cool.

1st Dive site: Virgin Hole (bring your lights!) - 7:30AM, This was a very cool dive too. We descended into a hole about 15-20' across and went down to around 90' it had a sandy bottom, not too much to look at. Needed the dive light near the bottom, it got a little dark. Then through the passage out, it was dark, but you could see where it opened to the sea and it was really pretty. At the end of the cave/tunnel, there was a large and colorful blanket anemone with immature clown/anemone fish and a tiny little crab in it. Saw another Lion fish, and another Cuttlefish, we were having excellent dives with all we were seeing!

2nd Dive site: German Channel -10:30AM, Excellent dive, it's a channel, so the visibility isn't great, but there were sharks, of course; and lots of Triggers, which were quite a nuisance. It was nesting season, and if you got too near one of their nests, they'd come at you like a bat out of hell. They were real ornery, and obnoxious! I had to use my octopus twice to get one away from me. He was putting a severe damper on my dive, I couldn't relax real well: everywhere seemed to be his territory! He actually nipped at Annmarie when she came by. We were hanging in this particular spot hoping for some Manta action. They come thru the channel to be cleaned by the smaller fish, alas, we saw none. We saw lots of gobies with their shrimp busying themselves in their burroughs, there were lots of nudibranchs here also, lots of crabs and anemones. TBT: 58min., Max Depth: 73', water temp: 84º.

3rd Dive site: Matthew's Wall - 2:00PM, Saw an Octopus on this dive. He was great, I love those guys. Tons of beautiful coral and anemones.

4th Dive site: Blue Corner - 4:30PM, More sharks, a large, 4-5' Eagle ray, Hawksbill turtle, Napoleon wrasse. TBT: 64min., Max Depth: 58'.

1st Dive site: Siaes Tunnel - 7:30AM, Turtles, sharks, fish... good tunnel, good dive. TBT: 64min., Max Depth: 107'

2nd Dive site: Ulong Channel - 11:00AM, Incredible dive site. There is a stretch of Lettuce Coral that is huge and goes on for 100 yards, or so. It was like nothing I've ever seen for coral. It was truly a stunning vision. Saw another turtle, a black sea cucumber with a black and white polka-dotted crab on it, and an itsy-bitsy little flounder-like fish (looked just like a miniature Peacock flounder). TBT: 66min., Max Depth: 54'.

I decided to take the afternoon off and enjoy lounging on the sun deck. That didn't last too long, it was way too hot, even under the canopy! Went down to my room where it was nice and cool and read for a bit, then headed back upstairs with a cold drink to wait for Dan the the rest of the diver's to return. It was another great dive, but nothing new or unusual, so I didn't feel too badly about missing it. Dan sat the 4th dive out also. We decided once we were showered, warm and dry, we were't going to do the night dive.... we didn't do one of them all week -- we lugged our 6 lb. lights halfway around the world for nothing! Actually, Karen used my light on a night dive, so it did get a little action. I also used it at the Blue Holes site and Siaes Tunnel.

A candlelit dinner was served up on the sun deck this evening, as it was our last meal on-board. We'd be back at the marina tomorrow and going into Koror for shopping/sightseeing after our final dive. Pat made a wonderful steak dinner, accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes, fresh salad and steamed veggies. She made a cheesecake for dessert.

We only did one dive today. It was at Chandelier Caves in a small harbor actually. I had an underwater camera for this dive, but I was a little disappointed at the bleak colors of everything here. The water was quite shallow, and lots of the coral was icky-brown. But there was a beautiful little fish that we were lucky enough to find: a Mandarin fish. These little fish are about an inch and half long, full grown. They are colored blue, red, green and orange in a very bizarre stripped kind of pattern. They hang out in coral, I can't remember what kind, but it's like a maze with lots of places to hide, so they're hard to spot, and they dart around a lot. Seeing this fish made the dive worthwhile. The cave was pretty cool too, it had stalagtites in the first room, and it reminded me of the cavern dive I did a few years ago on the way back from Xcalak, Mexico. I didn't go into the other "rooms" of the cave, and instead poked around out in harbor. Saw lots of feather dusters, little tiny immature fish, nudibranchs, and a Crown of Thorns starfish. It was the second one I saw on this trip. They're nasty critters: they eat coral and do lots of damage to reefs, good thing there aren't too many of them around.

The skiff brought us back to the Marina where the Aggressor II was waiting for us. We showered, had lunch and then a bus took us to town. I had a hard time finding postcards, and the post office was closed. I didn't know how or where I was going find postcards and stamps, and I was so psyched to mail them to everyone! I finally got some at a small giftshop, and Pat from the Aggressor took them and mailed them for me on Monday. We did a little shopping and sightseeing in the afternoon. Palau has a very nice museum, and we spent some time there. As a group we discussed where we might have dinner in town this evening. There were a couple of good places according to the crew. It ended up that we stayed on-board and ordered take-out pizza for us and the crew. We had a slide show and a video that the crew had been working on all week, and it was great. Mike did the slide show, and Jake and I put some of our pictures in. Captain Brian did the video and it was excellent. Dan and I didn't buy one and now I'm sorry that we didn't.

We didn't stay up partying too long, we had to pack and try to get some rest, as we were flying out to Yap Island at 1:00AM !!!! We left the boat at 10:30pm to head back to the airport. None of us were too happy with Continental changing our early morning flight to middle-of-the-night morning, but what could we do. It actually worked out well, it gave us a nearly full day more for Yap Island....

"According to one story, when early European explorers first arrived, the natives paddled out to meet them. The explorers pointed and asked the name of the island but the islanders with their backs to the shore, misunderstood the point. Holding up their paddles, they replied "yap" - which was their word for paddle. Ever since, the islands that the local residents call Wa'ab have been known to those outside its shores as Yap."

Dina and Geoff from Manta Ray Bay Hotel & Yap Divers (respectively), were there to meet and greet us at 3:00AM when we arrived, and they were in good spirits and incredibly efficient. We were all duly impressed with how smoothly everything went. Dina inquired as to who was who, and then promptly told us our room numbers, asked which luggage belonged to who, tagged them with each individual's room number and told us Tony would deliver our bags to our rooms, and that we could just hop on the bus, talk with our divemaster, Geoff, during the ride to the resort. Upon arriving at the hotel, we could just go directly to our rooms to sleep.

www.mantaray.com We spent 3 days in Yap to dive with the Mantas! Unfortunately, I had a heck of a head cold and didn't dive on Sunday. I relaxed and wrote out a few postcards and enjoyed the view of the harbor. Dan did two dives, and he said they were great. They saw 4 or 5 large mantas, which got me excited about diving here. I would go out Monday no matter what!

We all got ready for the 6:00PM cocktail reception party being held in our honor this evening down at the Nautical Weaver Deck and Bar.

It was a nice balmy evening, Dan and I headed down to the bar and tried one of the hotel's specialty drinks: a Yapese Sunset: whew, what a cocktail! 3 different Rums, Mango juice and a bit of Grenadine for the "sunset" - loved 'em. When the cocktail party started, we were greeted by Bill Acker, the General Manger of the resort, and along with most of the banks in Micronesia, and his family, owns the Manta Ray Bay Hotel. He was a very good host, real laid-back, mellow, a hawaiian-print shirt, shorts, no shoes, and a Jimmy Buffett-like lifestyle kinda guy. He welcomed us and told us that everyone here was at our service and if there was something we didn't have and wanted, just ask, or if there was something we didn't like tell him, or Geoff, or Chef, or any of his staff and they'd try to fix it. We were also introduced to the Chef, who explained that if we wanted something special to eat, to please see him and he would try and accomodate our requests. (It doesn't get any better than this.) Trudy, the wife of Geoff, the dive manager, is the photographer for the resort. She showed us a video about the diving in Yap, and that she'd be diving with us and shooting some footage that we'd see later in the week. She was also a social director of sorts. We all signed up to go on the Cultural Tour of one of the Yap villages, and Trudy was our guide, along with Dina who works at the reception desk. So anyway, during all this, we were given very festive drinks in coconuts, with lots of rum and coconut juice; another whew... I was pretty well lit by the time I had dinner. Slept very well this night too, oh, get this: our room had a queen size waterbed and a queen size conventional bed. The rooms were spacious and clean, huge bath sheets for the shower, and the cutest bars of soap I've ever seen. They were fashioned after the Stone Money that Yap is famous for. I loved this place. :)

Got up early again, had breakfast in the upstairs dining room. This is a great dive resort, they are wonderful here and so accomodating and pleasant, everyone smiles (I think it's the betel nut they chew!)

After breakfast we headed down to the dock, loaded up our fins, masks, and weight belts and left the lagoon at 8:30AM to dive in Mi'il Channel. I was the first one in the water, the current was a little heavy, so I descended on the bow line. While I was waiting for everyone else to join me, I was treated to a 6-8' manta going by about 15' away from me! It WAS going to be a good dive! Geoff, our divemaster had us proceed up the channel along the bottom. When we got to a cleaning station, we positioned ourselves on the sandbar and waited patiently. In about 2 minutes, a large 10-11' Manta ray came by. Breathtaking, beautiful and majestic! What a tremendous creature; they are elegant, and graceful, and grand. We watched this Manta for nearly 20 minutes. She (most that Yap Divers have identified are females) made 5 passes over us, it was heavenly to behold. This is why we came to Yap, and we weren't disappointed! The visibility was only about 30', my total bottom time was 60 minutes, and Maximum depth was 72', water a bit cooler here, this is due to the current sweeping thru the channel from the ocean.

We did our surface interval on the boat, and had our choice of hot tea, or cold water and an assortment of fresh baked breads (banana, and another, was offered), they were yummy. We enjoyed this sight, so we decided to dive it again. It was good the second time, but we didn't see any Mantas. But we did see a large turtle, and some sharks, so it was a good dive. My only slight disappointment was that I had a mind-set for seeing "many" Mantas - all over the cleaning stations. I saw 3 Mantas.

We were only scheduled for 2 dives a day while in Yap, so the afternoons were free to spend time relaxing, shopping, sightseeing, or drinking.

After breakfast, it was down to the pier, got our gear, hopped on the boat and took a 1.5 hour ride out to Yap Caverns and Gilmaan Wall. This dive started at 9:30, and it was so beautiful; sandy bottom, huge coral arch swim-throughs. The coral at this site was incredible, it was so plentiful and grand, and unblemished. We saw lots of eels in nooks and crannies, lots of little fish, anemones, Trigger fish, and along the wall: White tip sharks. This was a really nice dive, easy and beautiful. It was reminiscent of wandering thru a lovely garden. TBT:60min., Max Depth: 74'.

The weather started getting rough, the mid-size ship was tossed, but all the divers (except for one) wanted another dive! We tried as best we could not to spill our tea or water while waiting out our surface interval. It began to rain heavily, so we motored for about a half hour or so to a site that was on the way back to MRBH, rather than stay put and get tossed around on the water.

At noon we dove the site called Sakura Terrace. There was heavy surge, but it was a worthy dive. The coral cities went on and on... It was a lot like looking at the newer artwork on the J.R.R. Tolkien paperback copies of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings. Saw a couple more White-tips... jeez, they're everywhere... Then we wandered upon two sleeping nurse sharks -- they were at LEAST 7' long...! We couldn't even see all of them nestled into a coral head, as they were. It was a great last dive to our vacation. It wasn't easy getting back into the boat though! Seas were pretty rough. We had a hard time finding the last two divers in our group. They managed to end up at another dive site...

Rats. Our vacation was nearing it's end. Tomorrow we were heading back to Honolulu via Guam.

We had until 3:00PM before heading to Yap's airport. We were able to keep our rooms until we had to leave at 3:00, this place is unbelievable, how many hotels will let you keep your room all day without charging you for it??? --not many! I walked up to a nearby craft shop with Karen, Annmarie and Marcel to check out the local artisan's work. The wood carvings are exquisite: the detail on the sculptures is so fine and meticulous. I bought a storyboard in Palau, so I didn't buy anything here, but I saw a beautifully hand-carved Turtle that I wish I had picked up. It would have looked great on our coffee table in the den. Gonna have to go back.

Well, we got to the airport in plenty of time before our 5:00PM flight was due to leave, only to find out it was late. At 5:00 the plane was still in Palau. So we hung out at the airport for a long time. The plane from Palau finally showed up at 5:30ish, and they got it ready real quick for us to get on and get out of Yap. We got to Guam at 7:30PM rather than the original arrival time of 6:30PM. Everyone was tired by the time we got to the Hilton, but decided to meet down at the bar and then decide where and what to have for dinner. We ate a light dinner at the outside pool bar, where they were already celebrating Cinco de Mayo. The Hilton on Guam was magnificent -- what a gorgeous room we had. Too bad we were only there for a very short while (a couple hours!). Jackie and Dennis were staying... another 4 days! They were going diving and everything. We weren't :(

Our flight was leaving at 6:20AM this morning for Honolulu, so we checked out at 4:30AM. I would have loved to have stayed over in Guam for a few nights. It would have been to nice to have had some time to see the island. The Guam airport is beautiful.

Well, we got back to Honolulu without incident, after 6+ hours, 2 movies, breakfast & lunch and lots of liquids. Dan and I had the same room (960) that we had on the outbound portion of the trip, that was kinda weird. We had an easy two days. We did the helicopter tour during this stop-over. We hung out at the pool for a while to rest up for the long flight home starting on Friday night. Flight wasn't as bad coming back as I thought it would be. It was only a 10 hour flight... and another 3 movies... and 2 meals and a snack... and liquids, liquids, and more liquids.

Here's our mileage for the journey outbound. It was slightly less on the return, as Yap is a wee bit closer to home than Palau. The mileage we racked up should come close to getting us a free flight to somewhere.

Arrived in Boston a bit ahead of schedule. Got the limo home. We were a little crisp around the edges. The new Starbucks opened, and we wandered over for a jolt of caffeine to keep us awake a while longer. We fought off going to sleep til around 8:30PM.

It was an incredible trip. The diving was stupendous. I have now made 107 lifetime dives! Our accomodations were excellent, the food was fine, and our travelling companions were lots of fun. It couldn't have been any better, but it could have lasted longer... and a special "Thank you" to Ross, at Aquatic Excursions for another fantastic trip!

Mileage:	Leg	Cumulative
Boston to Newark:	191	191
Newark to Honolulu:	4966	5157
Honolulu to Guam:	3797	8954
Guam to Koror:	821	9775
Koror to Yap:	289	10064