Wrapping up the vacation

Another sad day.  My housing could not be fixed locally, so I retrieved it and wrapped it for the trip home.  We will see what happens with B&H, and Sea & Sea.  I don’t get the feeling that the results will be good, and I fear I will be forced to buy a new housing.  And there really is no option, as I have bought all the appropriate accessories for this housing.  Deep sigh.   I really love that wide angle lens, and its effect on the pictures.  I just am not thrilled by the very weak point of breaking at the hinges.

Wayne didn’t sleep well last night, and was up very early working on his dive log and his photos.  We went out to breakfast at 6:30, passing Jodi in the lobby.  When we got onto the Mnuw and into the dining room area, but the heat was so overwhelming that we decided to strike out elsewhere.  To no avail.  We went to the former Trader’s Ridge, now the Yap Dive Resort and in serious disrepair, but their breakfast area was no better.  We got the waitress to turn on the fans, but another one came over, threw menus at us, and turned off the fans.  We left.  From there we walked to the Bank of Guam ATM (needed cash!), and then looked in as many stores as we could in search of yogurt or breakfast items.  No luck.  I found out later that there is no yogurt available on the island, go figure.  When we got back to the hotel, I ordered us breakfast to be delivered to the room.  Lesson of the day is if it’s too hot on the Mnuw, they will deliver the meal elsewhere.  

Matt and Jodi did the land tour today, and I think that they really enjoyed themselves.  Wayne and I did a study of our drying dive gear, bringing it back into the air conditioned room, and getting it ready for packing.  We had a very lazy day, for which I was grateful, and I had a massage/mani/pedi at 2 pm.  My masseur originally went to college in the Philippines to become a civil engineer.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to continue the program when his scholarship ended, and he became a barber/hairdresser/masseur/nail technician. He originally came to Yap to work in a hair salon, but that folded, and he applied to work at Manta Ray Bay Hotel.  My benefit.  The massage started with a half hour hot bath alone in the room.  And me without a book.  I was glad when the half hour had ended.  I was very happy for the massage - he found dozens of knotted muscles and worked them into submission.  The mani/pedi was not quite what I expected, but good for a small island in the Pacific.  It took a half an hour per appendage to complete the mani/pedi, so I wound up having quite a long stay in the spa.

We tried to Identify our manta rays based upon the images at the hotel and dive shop, but our mantas appear unidentifiable.  Sigh.  It was so much easier when it was Kahn.

Wayne, in the meantime, caught up on Screencasts Online, a video podcast by our friend Don McAllister.  I highly recommend it if you are an Apple product user.

We had a light solo dinner, and then slept for nearly four hours before checking out and heading to the airport.  It was a sad day leaving.  We got to the airport, and had the usual bag inspection, although they didn’t pull everything out and then have me repack it this time.  From there it was through to departure tax ($20 per person), immigration, and then another inspection of our carry on luggage prior to being patted down.  The xray scanner was not working, so the wait to get patted down was a wee bit long.  

Super plus, the airport has free wifi and air conditioning now!  Of course, when you fill the waiting room, the air conditioning becomes less effective.  And the ever present mosquitos had not given up on their hunt for blood.  

The flight between Yap and Guam was uneventful, Wayne slept for over half the flight.  We went through Guam customs and immigration, and then headed to the United Lounge with Jodi & Matt.  Jodi was able to get her seats corrected (love those ladies at the front desk), and we fed Matt coffee.  Wayne started uploading his photos to the cloud, and we both updated the apps on our iPhones and iPads.  It feels good to be current!  

Wayne was able to secure super saver business first seats for the leg between Guam and Honolulu, for which I was grateful.  We slept for over half the flight between Guam and home.  Once we had our bags, we parted ways with Matt and Jodi who had one more leg to go.  I handed in our customs form, and we went to our car and headed home.  Once in the garage, I carefully opened up the door to the house, and sure enough there were three four legged beasties waiting for us.  I treated them to soft food, and we started to unpack.  I loved my trip, it was marvelous, but it is always good to be home.  Eliot had already left, so we changed, watched a tv show, and headed to bed.  Back to the grind tomorrow.

Red letter day for mantas

So we got up this morning and had the buffet breakfast on the bottom floor of the Mnuw.  Unfortunately, somewhere in the midst of our breakfast, the server opened up the door, and in flooded the flies.  We beat a hasty retreat after that - nothing like a swarm of those buggers to make you want to give up your plate of food.  It was time to get on the boat anyway!  We had all three tanks for our dives on board with us, and were ready for the day.  

I thought that our first dive was going to be at Mi’il Channel, which used to be the pre-eminant site for spotting manta rays.  I have had significant hit or miss luck with Mi’il Channel in the past, spotting a manta on only one of four dives there.  But, instead, we were headed to a relative new dive site, Stammtisch, discovered about five years ago, and written up in Tim Rock’s most recent book on Palau and Yap.  And the manta luck with Jodi just kept rolling!  We descended to a fifteen foot average dive, but managed to get down to 20 feet to be safe logging the dive.  We saw possibly 3-4 mantas, at the 11, 19, 25, 29, 50, 52, and 58-66 minute intervals.  The last two stayed with us for quite a while.  I had two overhead flights as mantas left the cleaning station.  In between, the parrotfish, as well as others, proved to be quite amusing.  We will have to identify the mantas via the board at Manta Ray Bay Hotel.  The dive computer said we would be able to stay down for close to 4 hours (!) at our consumption rate, but there was more to see today.

Our second dive was at Vertigo, where the center section of wall contains the steepest and deepest drop-off on the west coast of Yap. The south end of the wall gives way to a more gently sloping portion of the reef.  The first time we dived here together, I managed to forget my weights on the dive boat, so Wayne and I split his weights, and had a good dive, but were kicking upside down on our safety stop.  That would not be a problem today!  Vertigo is now the site where they chum the waters for the shark feed, so the sharks like to come close.  The guides threw some food in the water to attract the sharks, and we were surrounded by grey reef and black tips when we descended.  We stayed there for about 20 minutes and another group came in, so I asked Mike if we could continue along the wall and finish out the dive.  He seemed surprised, but we went.  And it was worth going.  Another shark, two turtles, a baby manta, and other creatures abounded.  I still love vertigo as a dive site, even if the guides don’t want to move along the wall.

We had the option of staying outside the lagoon for our third dive, or returning in to Macro.  We went back in to do Macro II. So Macro II is essentially Macro I in reverse.  We spent nearly an hour near the buoy, seeing the nudis again, along with the mantis shrimp, and two crocodile fish (Nico grabbed my attention when he found one, and Mike found another).  Then it was just tooling down the reef (after finally figuring out the macro setting on the miserable rental camera) taking pictures of macro items.  This rental camera chews through battery life, so the camera was pretty much useless on this dive, I had to turn it off and wait several minutes, and then take a single picture, and continue this way the whole two hours of this dive.  Nevertheless, it was a wonderful dive, although Jodi’s dive computer was still registering that she was at 15 feet when we returned to the boat.  At two hours and six minutes, this is my longest ever recorded dive (as well as Wayne’s), but Jodi’s computer is logging that it is going on much, much longer than 126 minutes!  We were definitely grateful to be allowed to spend that time under water, and we knew our time was up when Mike banged on his tank near the boat.

It was a quick turn around for dinner, and we were not bombarded by bugs at the table.  Thank goodness the breeze was back.  It’s always sad when the diving on the trip ends and you have to get ready to go home, but I’m ready to see my critters and to sleep in my waterbed for the first time in two weeks.  We will be coming back to Yap once again.  And this time it won’t take another 10 years.

And the hits just keep rolling on in

A less than auspicious start to our stay in Yap, albeit entirely my fault on one part, and the airline’s on the other part.  But before going into that, I was neglectful of the blog yesterday.  That is because it was a mostly lazy day.  Since we weren’t on the boat and diving, my ankle decided that it was time to start to get stiff and swell up again.  Oh joy.  Thankfully we purchased the new ankle brace on the 29th, and I was able to slip that on before we headed to breakfast.

The Rock Island Cafe owners/operators are Adventists, so they close the restaurant from 6 pm on Friday evening until 6 pm Saturday evening.  Because of this, we went to breakfast along with Matt and Jodi to the Anthias Cafe.  Of course it was appealing due to its play on our love for underwater critters, but it is very conveniently situated, and is very pleasant inside.  The free wifi was more than a wee bit slow, but we did have our own wifi cards for things that we needed.  After that, we went to the Coffee Berry Cafe for espresso, a bagel (one egg was a little too little breakfast for me), and more wifi of better bandwidth and speed.  

We returned to the DW shortly after 10, and then proceeded to walk to the Belau National Museum.  I was protected not only by sunscreen, but also by my umbrella shielding the sun.  There was an exhibit commemmorating the partnerships between Palau and Germany on display in the gallery which was very nice to walk through.  Palau has had quite a beleaguered past, occupation by the Spanish, German, Japanaese and US, down to the current Compact of Free Association.  Through it all, the Palauans remain gracious and generous, and welcoming to all of us tourists.  Amazing.

Lunch was at Okeanos, after which we walked back to DW again.  I was going to write in the blog, but a nap front moved in with lethal speed…

After the nap, we walked down to visit a newly constructed hotel (the Island Paradise Resort Club) run by a businessman from Taipei.  The building started several years ago, and then there was a fairly suspicious fire that gutted the complex.  It has since been rebuilt, and is now open for business.  The front desk manager, Jen, is a very pleasant Chinese woman who has spent extensive time traveling and living in Hawaii, Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania.  She definitely has a wicked sense of humor, and she gave us the email address of a point of contact for booking next year.  Of course, I subsequently misplaced the email address, so I will have to get it from Jodi.

We passed by the former Peace Corps building, which now appears to be a dive shop.  The Peace Corps closed its doors in Palau in August 2014 after the program determined that Palau graduated from a high need for Peace Corps services.  Sad sigh here.  If ever there were a place to go in the Peace Corps, it would have been Palau!!!  Nothing against Costa Rica or Mongolia, mind you.  

Dinner was light fare at Kramer’s, followed by the walk back to DW and a short nap before our flight to Yap.  We arrived early in Yap (the landing is as short and impactful as always), at 2 am.  We were greeted after going through customs, and brought to the hotel.  It is as pleasant as I remembered last time.  We were given the two deluxe ocean view rooms, complete with our own dipping pools outside our rooms - with privacy shades no less!  But, as I said, I had a less than auspicous start to the Yap trip.  I had left my iPad in the seat pocket, and I ran frantically to the front desk to inform them of my idiocy.  They called United, and sure enough, there was my iPad right where I had left it, seat 21C.  The staff retrieved it later in the morning, and I had it by breakfast time.

The second issue was my camera housing.  After 15 months of traveling and diving with my MDX-RX100/II housing by Sea & Sea, I opened up my suitcase, and pulled out the housing and its wrapping/cushion.  It was sheared in half.  Both Wayne and the camera shop owner here say that it is a manufacturer’s defect most likely, as it broke by the two plastic toggles holding in the door screws.  We shall see what happens when I get home.  I’m crossing my fingers that it’s covered.

Wayne and I finally went to sleep at 3:30 am, and got up for the day at about 7:30 am.  Our dive time was 10:30 am, and we were set for three dives.  We checked in our gear, did our waivers, I secured a rental camera, and then it was off to breakfast on the Mnuw.  We met up with Matt and Jodi at close to 10 am, and we were off on our three tank adventure day.

Returned to Koror

As always, there comes a time on a dive trip that we all dislike.  Rinsing, drying and packing our gear for the return home.  Mind you, the crew did the rinsing.  And a tremendous job at that.  They opened everything up, rinsed it clean inside and out, and hung it to dry. All that was left for us to do was to pack it in our bags for our departure later this morning.

We were up shortly after five, and got to see our last sunrise in Palau from the Ocean Hunter III.  Captain Ken had returned, and Captain Troy was back at the Ocean Hunter I.  Ken’s daughter graduated from high school last night.  From the look on his face, Ken appeared shell shocked.  Turns out the celebration dinner involved an extra seven for whom he had not budgeted.  His daughter will start at the community college in Palau, and is looking to transfer over after two years to Hawaii.  I promised a friendly family for her when and if she arrives.  We settled our tab at Fish n Fins, and proceeded to our “discount motel.”  Believe it or not, it is indeed quiet (mostly), clean, and the air definitely works in the rooms.  And for a bargain basement price.  Although not my first choice of places to stay, it is on the list for possible residency on our next trip, which Wayne is already planning for post-bar exam.  I may be a nervous wreck by then.

We waited at the DW, and I wasn’t able to log into the internet, so we went over to Rock Island Cafe.  Most unfortunately, their formerly promiscuous router was now safely guarded and the SSID fairly well hidden.  And it was once again password enabled.  Since there was no internet, and we weren’t hungry, we headed back to the DW to wait for our room, or for hunger to strike, whichever came first.  As life would have it, hunger came first, and we went across to the Rock Island Cafe for lunch.  It used to be a haven for ex-pats, but it has gained significant popularity with the local populace.  We had small pupus, the sashimi was particularly nice, and then settled for a decent lunch.  I felt sort of guilty in that I didn’t believe that I had earned my lunch since we hadn’t already completed two dives!  But we were both still hungry.  

After lunch, it was still far too hot to walk down main street Koror to go to the drugstore for more ibuprofin and benedryl, so we went up to the room, logged in, checked up on email, etc.  I tried to check on my grades, but they had not yet been posted.  Who knows how long that will take, and why should I worry myself about them anyway until I have returned to Hawaii?

I did reach out back to the CASA program, and to one mental health professional invovled in my case.  There is not much I can do to answer questions before our return next week, but I will certainly try.

The exhaustion of the week finally hit us both in mid afternoon, coincidentally when the sun was at its strongest.  We took a half an hour nap, and awoke to a note from Jodi and Matt on the door - they went to the Coffee Beanery to get some beverages and free internet.  We may try that tomorrow.

We left the hotel later, about an hour before dinner, and went up to the WCTC shopping center where we hit the pharmacy (benedryl, ibuprofin, ankle brace), and then Ben Franklin (I got a case for my new sunglasses, which came courtesy of Jodi).  And then it was down and off to dinner at the Taj, where we had reservations for seven.  Wayne, Matt, Jodi, Carl, Don, Valerie and I were seated at a round table, and we dissected the menu.  Robert Scaria, the owner, informed me of some shortages on the menu.  Apparently, there had been a large contingent of Chinese on island previously, and they had scarfed down all the lobsters (luckily not on my ordering list).  They had also drunk all of the Kingfisher beer!  It seems every time we come to Palau, the Kingfisher (Indian brew) is gone.  Oh well, Red Rooster on tap it was.  I ordered the half portion of leg of lamb, Wayne the eggplant, Matt and Jodi the tandoori mixed grill, Carl some shish kebabs, and Don and Valerie split the mangrove chilli (sic) crab.  We could have fed a small country in Africa (or all of India) with the amount of food that came out to the table.  The half portion of lamb was something of the size King Henry VIII would have eaten.  I should have taken a picture of that table, but I think I was in shock.  The conversation was animated and engaging, and I won’t go down the rabbit hole, but the majority of us at the table wondered how Don was able to keep Valerie so sheltered for the majority of her adult life…speaking of certain kinds of hammocks...

At the end of the meal, Robert sent over after dinner drinks that seemed to be a mixture of amaretto and sour mash.  Tasty, cold, and easy to go down.  From there, we bade our farewells amongst one another, with email addresses exchanged.  Then it was waddle time back to the DW, and time to get ready for bed.  Tomorrow we are on our own schedule, and I am planning for it to be a slow day.

Look up, look down, look around and remember your fins

Wayne was up and out of bed at 4:30 am.  When I joined him at 5:45, and Matt shortly after, he greeted us with a perky, “Happy morning!”  Matt countered, “Sad morning.”  I kind of have to agree.  Today is our last day on the Ocean Hunter.  Wayne is looking forward to booking the next trip, the dates of which are tentative.  But I’m pretty sure we are coming back.  Tova is brilliant.  I just didn’t realize how so until about 2 days into this trip.  Last year we told her we would be coming back, and bringing two friends, so that we could get a guaranteed three dives a day (you have to have four for the shop to arrange a third dive).  She then suggested returning on Friday when the two live aboard dive ships returned.  We were so impressed that I emailed Jodi and Matt right away.  And happily, they agreed, and we set out on this adventure.

Today holds four dives for us rather than the typical three.  I believe this is because Jellyfish Lake would have been this morning, but Captain Ken’s daughter is graduating, and he needed to be in town as of last night.  The good thing is Ken has confirmed our reservations (with Matt, Jodi, Don and Valerie) for the Taj tomorrow night.  Woo hoo!  

First dive this morning was the Chuyo Maru.  It was a civilian ship conscripted during WW II by the Japanese Navy, used as a supply ship, bombed during Operation Desecrate One during March 30-31, 1944.  There are two anchors lying on the port side of the deck, one of which belonged to the Chuyo, the second belongs to a fishing boat that accidentally anchored onto the Chuyo’s anchor.  Because of the age of the ship, the silt conditions, and the existence of ammunition on the wreck, penetration is considered to be dangerous.  Guess what Wayne did…

We rolled off the sides of our skiff, with a momentary stop to get Wayne’s fins, and then proceeded to the front  of the skiff to descend down the line.  From there we went to the stern, looking at various wildlife and wreckage.  On our return towards the bow, Wayne decided to penetrate the engine room and the kitchen, joining me back forward.  It was about a 3-5 minute swim down to the bow, where we were greeted by a barramundi and two batfish.  Then it was back to check out the masts, observing a crab inside an anemone, and a cascade of translucent smaller fish.  As we moved towards the ascending mast, we passed by cleaner shrimp and a tomato anemone fish.  Nice dive.  My right ear was a little achey at the end of the dive, so I used some outer ear 

Our second dive was at the Iro Maru, probably the most popular wreck in Palau.  The Iro was a fueler/supplier.  On her way from the Philipines to Palau, she was torpedoed by the US submarine Tunny on March 22, 1944, and she continued on to Palau for repairs.  During Desecrate One, she was attacked by air on March 30th, causing a massive explosion in the engine room.  We descended to probably the best conditions we have ever seen on the Iro.  You could see quite a bit in front of you, and the masts are just as impressive as I remember them being the first time I was on the wreck.  The school of jacks at the bow is missing, but we had a school of squid, a juvenile batfish, and a GINORMOUS octopus that flashed multiple patterns and colors as we watched.  Got a picture of Matt at the gun turret, and we headed back.  That was the closest to NDL we got during this trip.  At the safety stop I could hear multiple dive computer alarms going off.  Happily, my ear felt much better, and no treatment necessary post dive, but I did do it again after lunch.

Lunch was a taco bar replete with soft tortillas, hard shells, spicy and mild salsa, rice, ground beef, guacamole, refried beans, sour cream, and the decidedly non Mexican adobo chicken.  Quite tasty, putting Waipahu adobo to shame.  Never thought I would see that day!  We also spent time talking about Saturday activities after getting off the ship, and my mind just went to finding wifi, uploading the fixed up blog, maybe hitting the national museum when the sun is less bright.  Our flight is at 12:20 Sunday morning, so we want the bags downstairs and packed at the DW well before hitting the pillow for a few z’s.

Dive three, post lunch, was the Jake Seaplane, which is believed to have crashed during takeoff or landing after the engine stopped, as its propellers are straight.  The tail section and a pontoon lie to the north of the main body of the airplane, which is filled with many of the original equipment.  We arrived after another private boat was on site, and we waited a few minutes before descending.  The tide was high, and the visibility excellent.  It was easy to see the seaplane, and the separated pieces.  We had to wait a while for people to clear out before getting a good picture of the seaplane.  Then it was time to tool around the shelf.  There was an octopus who appeared to be in a food coma (2 empty crab shells in front of it), a cuttlefish, and a variety of fish nestled in staghorn coral.  Near the end of the ride, I hitched a ride on my bunny around the seaplane.  Nice ending to the dive, most certainly.  When we got back to the ship, we were greeted by soursop smoothies.  I think today is a red letter day for Wayne!

The fourth and final dive of the day was Chandelier Cave.  The cave is made up of five separate chambers, all of which are connected to one another and can be entered.  Four of the caverns have air pockets, and the fifth is completely above water. At the end of the dive, dive guides motion for you to turn off your light, and you exit the cave following ambient light coming in from the entrance.  I will not lie to you and tell you that Wayne and I went in.  I have been in there several times before with him, and each time after the first time I have suffered some sort of barotrauma.  This time, we stayed outside the cave and looked for mandarinfish.  I saw one immediately upon descent, and then another about 10 minutes in.  Then we spent another 40 minutes looking along the wall, but saw nothing more.  There just wasn’t enough rubble.  At about the 50 minute mark, we were back at the opening to the cave, and we went out in the rubble.  The little buggers were everywhere, just not staying in place long enough for a photograph.  We hit almost 1 1/2 hours before getting out and heading back for our final dinner.

We got off the boat, and the staff pulled our gear off, and cleaned it super thoroughly.  I don’t think that even Wayne and I do quite so good a job at rinsing.  I was duly impressed.  This staff has been so professional and thorough, I don’t think that I have ever met a dive boat staff that compares.  My hat off to them.

After we both did our five minute rinses on both ears, we headed down to dinner.  Oh dear, how yummy!  Tuna and mackerel sashimi, vegetable soup (Wayne enjoyed this), pumpkin curry, salad, beef short ribs, bow tie pasta, and okra.  With the exception of the beef short ribs, Wayne was in diver heaven.  He even ate two chocolate souflee with vanilla ice cream (I could only eat a few bites of mine).

Tomorrow is a sad day, breakfast at seven, off the boat at 8:30, settle the bill afterwards.  And then on to our second phase, a few days in Yap.  I will be counting the days until I can come back.