On Saturday, Justin and I went to Fish’n Fins for our final two dives before becoming certified divers. As per routine, we joined a boat of much more experienced divers headed to whatever destination had been planned for them. Actually, Justin and I have decided that there isn’t much planning when it comes to the destinations…..just a vague outline. This method seems to work pretty well since the diving instructors know the dive spots like the back of their hands and this freedom allows them to change destinations if there is anything unsatisfactory about the original one (current strength, direction, high vs low tide, etc.). That day we were headed to (conditions permitting) the New Drop Off and Blue Corner, which is considered one of Palau’s best but most difficult diving spots. At Blue Corner, you can see the widest selection of aquatic life, but there is also an extremely large current which requires you to use a reef hook. A reef hook is essentially that – a hook that you catch on the reef (a non-living section of it) that also has a long cord attached to it which you clip to your diving gear. This allows you to remain in a hovering position despite the current so that you can watch the sharks, fishies, turtles, and other animals swimming by. This time I came prepared with a good quality mask that I purchased at a local dive shop. As we all know, I have an incredibly small face (thanks mom) and had to use a child’s size rental mask on the first few dives. Width wise it was decent fit, but it was a bit too short and was starting to hurt my nose.
We set out at about 9am under a canopy of ominous looking clouds. Alain, our diving instructor, assured us that bad weather on the surface meant calmer conditions underwater. I’m still trying to figure that one out, but somehow he was right as the currents at both locations were supposedly not as strong as they sometimes are. Our first stop was the New Drop Off, also called West Ngemelis Wall, with a steep drop off (as the name suggests) starting around 5-10 meters. We stayed pretty close to the wall and got a good look at the colorful soft coral and hordes of fish swimming around it. There was a huge school of Redtooth Triggerfish, dancing in the water against the current. They are incredibly beautiful but can be quite dangerous if they feel threatened or protective. Alain actually had a piece of his ear bitten off by a triggerfish (not the redtooth variety) on a dive several years ago. He said that the big ones can even bite through a scuba fin, which is fairly solid rubber. We saw a variety of brightly colored fish – lots of butterflyfish like the Threadfin Butterflyfish and the Yellow Longnose Butterflyfish, some clownfish, yellow and blue surgeonfish, a giant turtle, more schools of barracuda, and of course more reef sharks. This list doesn’t even begin to really cover all the different species of marine life that we saw, but, despite Alain’s frequent use of his white board to write their names down for us, there is no way that I can remember them. We did manage, however, to take pictures of some of them. Justin made sure to charge his batteries and bring his camera, regardless of how boring Alain said the dive would be. Of course the pictures don’t do the fish justice. The water is amazingly clear and blue – in shallower water you can see to the bottom quite clearly – but the colors just don’t seem to come out as bright when you’re deeper, even with a flash (which isn’t that strong on a Cannon powershot apparently). We would have needed additional lighting, or the several thousand dollar underwater housing to Justin’s really nice Nikon camera, to make the colors as bright in a photo as they really are.
Our second dive was at Blue Corner – a site that is on almost every single “top 10 dives of the world” list because of the sheer volume and variety of fish that you can see in just one spot. That and the fact that the dive can be different every time you dive it. We dove down and slowly made our way to the coral shelf that then drops off at about 17 meters or so, fighting what I thought was a decent current (but apparently wasn’t very strong at all). Alain helped us “hook in” with the reef hooks and then we just hovered against the current watching the most awesome array of fish swimming harmoniously amongst each other. Some were the same from the previous dive, but there were a few others that we hadn’t seen yet. I saw a beautiful fish that was brown on the upper half of its body and had perfectly formed white circles on the bottom half. It turned out to be another triggerfish – a Clown Triggerfish. I also saw an eel hiding in the coral as some fish swam around his small opening. There were, of course, more sharks, but this time one of them had a couple of baby reef sharks swimming underneath her, trailing her every move. There were some huge variety of tuna, giant trevallies and an enormous green looking fish called a Napoleon Wrasse that seemed to take a liking to us. Even after we unhooked and swam away, it seemed to follow us. It was definitely a popular spot among the divers. There must have been several dozen of us hooked in to various areas of the reef, mesmerized by the scene playing out before us.
After we surfaced, we went to the “swimming pool” where we had practiced our underwater skills the week before to eat lunch. By this time, the weather had definitely taken a turn for the worse. It was windy, rainy, and cold. Thankfully we didn’t stay there very long since they had also planned another trip to Jellyfish Lake, which is somewhat shielded with calmer waters and less wind. Justin and I decided not to go up this time (we were both cold and he wasn’t feeling well – he had a massive headache). Alain stayed back with us and we hung out with the rangers in their little office. They felt bad for Justin – he was shivering – so they gave him some hot ramen and tea to try to warm him up. When the rest of the divers finally came back down, we headed home. I have to admit that the boat ride back was fairly miserable. Riding uncovered in a speedboat through the rain is less than pleasant. The rain drops feel like tiny needles hitting your skin and you can’t warm up. On top of that, each wave we went over (and there were a lot of them when it was that windy) made Justin’s headache even worse. Thankfully, we made it back to dive shop fairly quickly (with one short interruption where we ran out of gas and had to look for the spare gas tank stored on the boat) and Justin was able to get some medicine from one of the dive pros who suffers from migraines. The medicine has codeine it, so Justin soon felt better - or at least he didn’t care about his headache anymore. After we had rinsed off and returned all of our rented gear, we had our last little meeting with Alain during which we got our temporary diving cards. We are now certified divers!!!
Despite the conditions at the end, it was an awesome day. I think that New Drop Off is my favorite dive so far; the coral and fish were just so beautiful. We’re not sure when our next dives will be, but I’m sure that we’ll try to squeeze in a few more before we leave Palau. And be patient with us on the pictures….we have them and you will too eventually.
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