Scuba Dive

Jell-O at Jellyfish Lake

In the 1960’s Jacques Yves Cousteau claimed Palau’s underwater walls, reefs and drop offs as the world’s best.  Forty+ years later, divers still agree with this assessment.  Palau, formally known as the Republic of Palau, or Belau to native Palauans, is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean about 2000 miles south of Tokyo, but with less baseball.  The Spanish, Germans, Japanese, and finally the Americans have all played Gilligan’s Island in Palau, leaving a pinch of customs, language, and technology here and there.  Palau was a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, which the U.S. headed at the end of World War II.  In 1994 the Republic of Palau moved out of their parent’s basement and became independent.

This island nation has cultivated their underwater tourism by encouraging hotel development around the capital city, Koror, and by establishing numerous dive operators.  But the true fuel of the dive trade in Palau isn’t manmade: the nation boasts 100+ pristine dive sites and healthy, diverse, and prolific sea life. Palau has over 1500 types of fish and 700 coral and anemone species. Most of the dive sites are sure to produce sightings of the 6 different kinds of sharks and 5 different kinds of turtles found there.   While there are too many fantastic dives to name, below are a few of my favorites.

Read moreBlue Corner – Listing this site is not surprising, as it is the most famous one in Palau and is lauded in dive magazines and books alike.  But, it is hands-down my favorite dive in the whole world, so it gets the top spot on the list.  Here a finger of land extends out into deep water off the southwestern area of the Ngemelis Islands, creating a unique outcropping of rock and coral.   Sand gullies cut through the reef, which drops down to a large ledge in about 50ft, before disappearing into the endless blue.  A wicked current usually whips around this point bringing tasty nutrients and hungry fish.  Local dive guides invented the “reef hook”, a lanyard that attaches to your BC and hooks into dead piece of coral.  By slightly inflating the scuba vest and facing the open ocean beyond the edge of the wall, divers can watch the activity unfold without getting tired and using up all of their air. Visibility is good, ranging from 60’ to 90’.If conditions are at their best then expect to see swirling schools of barracuda and jacks, snapper and bass, huge Maori wrasse and dozens of whitetip and grey reef sharks.  On several dives there, the most curious of the sharks would swim right towards us, veering off at the last moment before we soiled our wetsuits.  I imagined them picking each of us off one by one, in Goldilocks and the Three Bears style: that diver is too thin, that one’s got too much gear, that one’s just right.  Other sea life highlights at this site include: pink and violet coral, pyramid butterflyfish, spotted eagle rays, square anthias, yellowtail fusiliers, sargent majors, moorish idols, emperor angelfish, midnight parrotfish and stingrays.

Jellyfish Lake – Jellyfish Lake is on one of the rock islands, Mecherchar.  The lake is completely isolated, although the limestone allows for an exchange of salinity with the ocean.  The lake is filled with mastigias and moon jellyfish.  Because of their isolation from predators these jellies have lost their ability to sting, so they have adapted to feeding on symbiotic algae instead.  It is an excellent study in evolution, an example of function driving form that Darwin would have loved.  Of course no adventure in Palau is an easy one, but if you can get over the difficulties of accessing the site, it is completely worth it.  In order to get to the lake one has to hike 20 minutes up and over the lip of the island.  In some places the trail is good and even has a rope to steady the climber.  In others, it is just a mud slide.  Along the route there are several instances of an indigenous tree that leaks poisonous sap.  And, of course, every once in awhile there is the tour bus of saltwater crocodiles that seem to appear at all the good Palauan activities.  Scuba is not allowed in the lake because of a toxic layer of hydrogen sulfide found at 50 feet, so technically this is a snorkel, not a dive.  But, inconveniences aside, swimming through the water with the jellies is like pushing handfuls of Jell-O.  It is an experience like no other in the world.

Wreck of the Iro – This wreck, the most famous in Palau, is located at Urukthapel Bay. It is 470ft long and weighed 14,050 tons.  The Iro was one of a fleet of 10 Shiretoko class freighters.  She sank on 31 March 1944 and rests upright on a silt and sand bottom 130ft below the surface. When you descend, you’ll come across a large gun mounted on the bow. The deck is still relatively intact as is the starboard anchor. The bridge has easy access, but the crews’ quarters underneath require you to penetrate the hull. There is a gun that is still fixed to the stern.  Divers can peer into the engine room because its ceiling had been demolished. The masts and kingpost have attracted a wide variety of invertebrate life; from sponges, to staghorn coral, sea whips, black coral, giant clams and oysters. Batfish, large pufferfish, 8-banded butterflyfish, orangebanded butterflyfish, and small big-eye trevally are commonly found along the ship.

The Blue Holes- This site consists of four uniquely formed blue holes in the reef that drop into a large cavern which then opens out on the reef wall into the surrounding ocean. In the inside of the cavern, visibility ranges from 45 to 120’. On sunny days great shafts of light beam down through the upper openings, lighting up interior all the way to the bottom at 110ft, like a large cathedral. In inner walls are covered with a variety of cup & stylaster corals and huge whip corals sprout from the cavern roof.  Look for fish swimming upside down  on the ceiling of the cavern.  But, this geological anomaly delivers not only a cavern dive, but also a drift and wall dive once divers exit through one of two openings on the reef face. Grouper, napoleon wrasse, triggerfish, moorish idols, butterflyfish, anemones and turtles are all found here.

German Channel – Located with Ngemelis Island on the left and Ngedebus Island on the right, German Channel was built in the 1900’s, when the German administration blasted through the reef to complete the natural channel and allow ships to pass from the southern islands of Peleliu and Angaur to Koror. Today it is used as passage through the south-western barrier reef to many of the outer dive sites. It is not actually in German Channel that people dive, but at the entrance to the channel at an area usually known as German Channel Wall or Drop-Off. Here, some 200 yards from the entrance to the channel itself, the seafloor, at a depth of 50-60ft consists of a sandy substrate interspersed with large individual coral formations. This dive is popular for its manta cleaning station, where the manta and the occasional reef shark come to be cleaned by cleaner wrasse. You can also see other kinds of rays including sting rays, spotted eagle rays, and ornate eagle rays.

Ulong Channel – This drift dive site is situated on the west coast of Palau, close to Siaes Tunnel. The entrance is covered with coral gardens and the channel itself stretches some 500m – at an average width of 33m – to the lagoon. There is a sandy bottom at the entrance where shark gather together to feed on the fish that are swept inside.   The bottom varies in depth from between 10-15m and is clear of coral, but the sides are decorated with soft coral and sea fans. Diving Ulong can only be done on an incoming tide; fresh, clean water is pushed into the channel and you essentially hitch a ride and go with the flow. If the current is really ripping then you have almost no chance of back tracking if you see something of interest. About half way the channel splits into two – the left hand route is the best, as a huge stand of green lettuce coral grows along the flank of this section; amongst the corals large anemones are home to clownfish and shrimps. The right hand route also has some good fan corals, but is not as good. After 20 minutes drifting down the channel it breaks out into the lagoon. Divers will be able to see tons of plate coral that houses squirrelfish, glasseyes and soldier fish.  If the current is strong there will be as many or more sharks concentrated at the mouth of the channel as at Blue Corner on a good day.

Saies Tunnel – This site is an enormous underwater cavern with three openings into the chamber from the side of the reef wall. The entrance to the cavern starts at approximately 100 feet and the bottom is over 140 feet.  The sheer wall that starts at the surface drops down to 200 feet and beyond to the open ocean. Often, sleeping whitetips and stingrays can be seen relaxing at the back of the cavern. The roof and walls of the cavern are covered in a variety of cup corals, black coral, stylasters and hydroids.  The bottom slopes up toward two large sea fan-covered windows that allow light to penetrate the cavern and provide exit points to the reef wall.  The bottom of Saies Tunnel is deep – about 130ft – so time spent in the interior is short, but upon exiting there are rewarding opportunities along the reef itself – wonderful hard corals, sea fans and tropical fish, including pyramid butterfly fish and brightly colored anthias.  A great dive, but not for novices.

Peleliu Cut – Peleliu Cut is part of a vertical wall, which runs along the western side of Peleliu Island, turns and extends to Peleliu Corner at the most southerly point within the main island group of Palau. This section of the reef, which includes Peleliu Wall, is the deepest reef structure in Palau. The top of the reef is a plateau that gradually drops from 30 feet in front of the WWII monument to 90 feet where Peleliu Expressway and Peleliu Cut merge to create Peleliu Corner.  The top of the plateau hosts large numbers of tropical fish including pyramid butterflyfish, square anthias, moorish idols, sergeant majors, yellowtail fusiliers, palette surgeonfish, bumphead parrotfish and purple anthias. It is also common to see large congregations of jacks, batfish, and snapper.  Dense concentrations of bright yellow soft corals, long strands of cable corals, big bushes of black corals and sea fans decorate the sheer reef wall.  An insane amount of pelagic fish have been seen at the Cut and the Corner, including sperm whales, whale sharks, tiger sharks, bull sharks, orcas, sailfish, and blue marlin.  The swift, unpredictable currents here make this an advanced dive not appropriate for the faint of heart!