Ungil Beches Er Rak!

I had the rare treat of sleeping in until 5:30 this morning - yippee!!  We went down to breakfast still at our normal early hour, and enjoyed our last breakfast at the Sea Passion.  Although our two stays here have been good, I don’t think we will be coming back, but I would still recommend it as a reasonable location close to the dive centers (Sam’s and Neco).

It’s no secret that we haven’t been happy with Sam’s Tours’ front office this trip.  Dermot’s reorganization and streamlining has made it a less friendly, attentive and discerning operation.  New divers are mixed in with experienced divers, repeat visitors are made to go through dive checks again, the billing system is highly flawed, and the staff at the desk seem to say “No, it is impossible to do that” rather than “Let’s see what we can do.”  If I hadn’t recruited other divers, we wouldn’t have made it to Peleliu (and the gentleman working the front desk actually told me no, we couldn’t go to Peleliu because there was no way he could get permits at 3 in the afternoon).  We signed up, but never got to go on a night dive.  We had five different divemasters and four different boats.  Not that we are complaining about the divemasters, we appreciated them.  The tanks are poorly cared for - so many leaky valve stems and valves, chewed up yoke adapters.  The front office doesn’t have a spreadsheet controlling what gear goes on which boat - we even had to use creative replacements for camera buckets!  And the poor Hammerhead has seen better days, and needs some serious repair.  It just seemed like the front office didn’t care.  And neither do Sam or Dermott.  I am going to have to write to the Traveling Diver’s Chapbook about this visit.  And I don’t think that I can go back there again. 

With all of that in mind, we walked up to the Carolines Resort to check out the rooms.  The manager was quite friendly, and we went up to see one of the cabins.  They are lovely, all with lanai views of the water below.  There are only 8, so the service is very personalized.  I expect that we will be staying there in June this year when we return.           

From there we walked to Fish ‘n Fins - a little over an hour away from the resort.  We walked in and the shop was as busy as Sam’s, but it took only a few minutes before someone came up to us to ask if we were being helped.  And it turned out to be one of the owners - Tova.  She took us around and showed us the operation.  We were both very impressed with the tour.  Despite the December crowd, the mechanics were efficient, not chaotic.  Divers are on the same boat for their entire trip, and the boats are booked by skill level rather than haphazard choice.  The other owner, Navot, is a Naval engineer, and he custom designed the boats.  Each row is set up to enter the water separately rather than jockeying for position on one of two or three entry points.  Each set set has an area to set up the tanks, and its own dry box.  The seats are cushioned!  

Gear rinsing is set up by equipment type and clearly labeled, and the gear is very close to the boats.  The dining area seems clean, and the bento boxes are made in their own cafe.  We spoke with a number of the divers who have used FnF, and they all rave.

Oh, and did I mention, they have a cat?  I’m sold!  We’re booking a try-out visit in June, and asking to tour their live-aboard boat.

From there we walked to Red Rooster Cafe for lunch.   A diver we met yesterday gave rave reviews to their New York pizza, but, eh, hard to do NY pizza outside of NY.  It was passable, but no real rush to eat there again.  :)

We cabbed it back and enjoyed nap time!  After packing gear, logging dives, and starting the difficult photo selection, we headed back to the Taj for our last meal in Palau.  Robert (owner) was very kind to us - gave us the meal gratis, and then arranged to have us driven back to the hotel to get ready to return home.  He has done very well with the Taj, expanding it with a bar, and having a creative menu that is also authentic.  If you ever are here in Palau, you must come and eat at the Taj!

Back for a little rest before the long flights home.  I already miss Palau!

Our last diving day (this trip)

I can’t believe that we have made it to our last day in Palau - it seems unbelievable.  I remember when booking thinking that 9 diving days was a long amount of time, after all, it is 27 dives.  But it flew by, just like it always does.

We started out early at Blue Corner.  The trick is to leave the dock before 8 am, and you are virtually guaranteed to be the first dive boat there.  And we were.  There was more current this morning than our other early start, and not quite as many sharks, but still enough to make us happy.  I always enjoy seeing the big grey reef sharks being escorted off the property by jacks.  It is amusing to watch!  We circled the entire corner this morning, and just really enjoyed having it to ourselves.  When we surfaced, we were surrounded by many boats!  Nice to have it all without them to start the morning.

Our second dive was at New Drop Off after a biting rainstorm.  I wound up having to pull out the “magic coat” early in order to save my skin from what felt like slicing rain.  The currents were moving on this dive, and the channel section had quite a bit of an eddy pulling divers down.  Not us, though.  I was surprised to see the number of divers at the corner here on this dive, as I hadn’t taken into account that the other boats nearby had dropped their divers off here as well.  It was ok, we saw quite a lot of life, to include one Napoleon wrasse who (like the first time we saw him on this trip) looked to have seen better days.

Our last dive this trip took us back to German Channel.  How could we resist the urge to try for four for four?  We didn’t resist.

And we went four for four.

We made it down to the cleaning station and were getting ready to settle in when Joedyn pointed out the manta getting cleaned.  All four of us (Wayne, me, Benjamin and Sandra) got down on our knees and bellies to watch the 12 foot beauty being cleaned.  It was so graceful and beautiful to watch.

After a bit we swam along to the swarm of fish, but there was really no plankton, so the mantas were not at the bait ball.  We went back to another cleaning station, and we got to see a second manta, this one about 8 feet, getting cleaned as well.  It was as good a last dive for the year as we could possibly want!

We finished up the day with a stop in the milky way, a waterway famed to make you 10 years younger.  The first (and last) time I was in its waters was about 10 years ago, so we figured it was time for a renewal.  Stef the dive guide free dived down to bring back the sulfur mud in the water.  We slathered ourselves in the mud, and after it dried, went for a bit of a dive and swim to wash it off.  Let’s see how it works this time!  I put it liberally in my hair, hoping to fade away the grey and blond and to bring it back to red.  Wishful thinking, I know.

We got back, cleaned up our gear (to include a shampooing with “sink the stink” since our BCs and gear smelled like fishy fish), had the traditional New Year’s sashimi and beers with Sandra and Benjamin, and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner was as Palm Bay Bistro, and en route we picked up a passable bottle of sparkling wine (I really didn’t want to walk 5 miles round trip to get a good one and then to dinner).  After we finished our meal, we headed to the hotel, where the disco music entertained us as we chilled our bottle and got ready to settle down for the night.

Winding down

And another fine day for mantas.  We were rejoined by Sandra and Benjamin, who spent yesterday driving around Palau with Inga and Stefan.  And we finally have Joedyn dedicated to us for the next three days.  At last!

Benjamin and Sandra were eager to do Ulong Channel again, and we were in agreement, so we were joined by a few new folks on the boat as we  headed out.  The two men were Aussies, and the woman was a Scottish expat relocated to Australia (she and her beau met in Las Vegas!).  The solo Aussie was definitely encouraging all on board to visit the Great Barrier Reef.  It is on the bucket list, but the water is just so darn cold there...

Our first dive today was at the Sandbar, near Ulong Channel.  Our second dive here wasn’t quite like the first, but still very nice.  When we descended, we were in the middle of a school of bumphead parrotfish.  Apparently, it is mating season, although we did not appear to catch any in flagrante delecto (sp?).                   

Somewhere during the dive, we acquired an extra diver from a different boat.  She followed me from the leaf scorpionfish rock over to our group, and Joedyn wrote to her that she needed to stay and wait for her group.  She nodded, and we took off.  Only to discover 10 minutes later that she was still with us!  Joedyn again wrote to her to wait, and this time she shook her head no.  Quite emphatically.  When we reached the turn around, we headed back and eventually ran into her dive buddy.  You should have seen the body language under water.  I wonder what that conversation wound up being.

The second dive was Ulong Channel.  We descended into a school of jacks, quite impressive.  And then followed along behind four grey reef sharks, going along a different route to the channel than I had taken before.  There were another 2 sharks at the mouth of the channel, and two feeding anemones with some concerned fish along the way.  We had a good current going through the channel, which was absolutely teeming with aggressive titan triggerfish.  None of us got hurt, though, and we all enjoyed ourselves. 

And then off to our third dive at German Channel.  I was holding my breath and hoping for the best.  There were quite a few boats there when we arrived, but we still needed a good bit of time for our surface interval.  Joedyn spotted a bait ball on the surface, so we knew where to go in general.

No sooner than we get to the first cleaning station, we experienced a fly-by directly overhead.  The manta was beautiful.  There were two others far above it.  We wound up following them towards the bait ball and we got a beautiful show yet again.  During the dive Wayne and I simultaneously saw a jellyfish in front of us and we backed away.  Unfortunately, I backed right into another’s tentacles.  Painful.  Good thing there were mantas to distract us!                             

At the end of the dive, we saw about 6 grey reef sharks and 4 groupers in a row just waiting to be photographed, but with no one paying them any attention.  Poor babies!

Dinner was at the Taj again, probably our favorite place in the entire world to eat.  Although Auntie Pasto’s is a close second.  I have to admit to some distress in my lower back and my ankles today, largely because of two consecutive days on a boat with a really short ladder.  Lesson learned is that if the ladder is short, I hand up my gear next time rather than put the larger strain on standing upright with the gear on.

Only one dive day left.  Who knew 9 days could go so quickly?  :(

The rain returns

Actually started the morning in a panic - had an email and phone message from the Dean of Student Services.  I went into full panic mode.  Deans don’t normally call unless there is something bad, or so I thought.  Not the case, the Dean was just getting clarification on my absence notice for a date in January.  Whew.

We finally have Joedyn on the boat as our DM, for today and the last two days.  It’s been ping pong back and forth between divemasters this trip, which was not expected.  Since it is just the two of us, I can understand why, but I’m really disappointed in Sam’s this time around.  Wayne has been here 14 times, me 9 times.  We have been treated (except by Joedyn) as newbies who are subjected to what seems like endless check-out dives of each DM.  And the front office has been deplorable.  The new staff could care less on how they book the boats - they are mixing first day divers with last day divers and repeat customers.  Add that to the billing error that took forever for them to correct, and it’s just really disappointing.  We are planning on not returning, and will be giving our business to Fish and Fins the next time.  We are checking them out in order to evaluate whether or not to go on their live aboard, the Ocean Hunter III.

We were on board with two last day divers today, so my hopes for a long day out at Siaes went the way of the wildebeest, but not in a bad way.  We did do our first dive at Siaes Tunnel.  We entered, but the jacks were not at the entrance, so I was a little disappointed.  But I should have known that they would not let me down, and there was a (reduced in size) school swarming in the cave.  I searched in vain for long nose hawkfish, but there were none to be found.  Joedyn says that the reduced size of jacks is due to Yapese fisherman, but he had no explanation for the dearth of hawkfish.  Oh well, hopefully the hawkfish will rebound.

Our second dive was a return to Blue Corner.  We had a moderate current, so we hooked in, and enjoyed.  A lot of big life was welling all around us.  Surprisingly, even though there were many boats on the surface, when we went to both hook in locations, our group was there alone.  That was a first for both Wayne and me, and very much appreciated!

The two who were on their last day only did two tanks today, so we went back to Sam’s in the middle of a downpour, and ate our lunches there.  The final dive was on the Iro Maru wreck, inside the protected harbor area.  The visibility was surprisingly good!  We descended upon a huge school of swirling jacks, that moved along with us as we swam along the ship.  I did my first ever penetration into the wreck (yes, I do have some claustrophobia), and enjoyed it.  When we came out, we were followed by both a longfin spadefish and a solo remora looking for a new home.  After the dive, I willingly gave Wayne back his camera housing, as I had photographed everything on Palau that I had wanted to photograph on this trip.      

Dinner was at Suriyothai, a fairly new (to us) restaurant on the main road in Koror.  It was pleasant, but loud!  The food was very, very good and the service decent.  Another nice discovery this trip.

Manta Manta Manta Manta!

This had to be the best dive day in my life.  Ever!  Even better than two dives in a row at the nursery in Rongelap.  The only word we could possibly use to describe the day was wow.

At first I was worried, Joedyn was still off because his son had a checkup later in morning, and we were assigned to Matsu.  But the boat only had 6 divers today rather than 12, so we decided we’d go with the flow.  And we were glad we did.

Blue Corner as the first boat - amazing.  We were the first boat there, and when we descended, there was absolutely no current on the corner, and the life was teeming.  There were sharks, Napoleons, barracuda, jacks, turtles, almost a case of you name it, you see it.  Best Blue Corner dive ever!

The second dive was among my least favorite in Palau - Virgin Blue Hole, which is a hole that takes you down about 110 feet before you enter into the blue waters.  The entry was unremarkable, but the reef, after we got back up to 30 feet, was quite lovely.  I could have dived that for an hour and skipped the hole!                  

But then came the dive of the day for real - German Channel.  We weren’t expecting anything at all, especially after two manta sightings this year.  We descended by the first cleaning station, where I was attacked by a dascyllus.  After about 10 minutes, we were afraid the whole dive was a bust - no sharks, no mantas, no jacks - but then we went to the bait ball.  OMG. 4 manta rays!  Going to town on plankton.  And Wayne had let me use the housing today, so it was my chance to go for broke taking pictures!  I think I shot almost 100.  Yee haw!  We’re on a winning streak this year!

Dinner was at Palm Bay Bistro.  We also made reservations for New Year’s Eve dinner, since we figure that it will be quiet and easy going here rather than hitting the party scene.  The menu here continues to get better and better.  I’m certain that Wayne will continue to want to come back, no matter where we stay here.

Red Rooster now makes a red and white wine.  Somehow, that scares me.  Maybe I’ll try it in a few years, kind of like returning to Peleliu.