Underwater Images, Liveaboard on Eco Explorer, Palau, Jan 09


Living, Food and Diving:
Palau: 450sq km, pop. 20K -- the youngest and smallest nation on earth; and home to some really nice diving. The Explorer fleet runs two ships in Palau (Eco- and Big Blue). We were signed up for Big Blue, but the economy being as it is, the company was only running Eco when we landed in Koror. No matter, since they both run the same tour. Eco can take 30 divers, but this trip they only had 12, making it all very pleasant. The boat is large, the rooms are comfortable, and the crew are excellent - everything, including rinsing dive gear, is taken care of. The best touch: the warm towels after each dive. There's plenty of space on board, and even a jacuzzi.

The food:
Most liveaboards we've been on have figured out fairly decent menus. Eco Explorer is the same. Food was overall very good, and plentiful. There are soups with each meal (including breakfast). Breakfast is western: toast, cereal, sausage, bacon, eggs. Lunch and Dinner had three or four dishes, typically meat, seafood, veggie in addition to salad. Most dishes were good, the grilled wahoo-teriyaki excellent. There was plenty of fresh fruit.

The Diving:
We reached Koror around midnight, and by the time Terry, the trip director, had us on board, it was late. The next day the boat remained docked at the pier, and we made three dives in the neighborhood, getting there in the chase boats. In the trip, we dived in three main areas: German channel (GC), Ulong, and Peliliu. The Eco remains anchored mostly in GC, except for one day when it moves to Peliliu, returning back for the last day of diving in GC. We have dived a fair amount already, but almost each day we had at least one interesting new dive, notably the Chandelier caves, Blue corner, German channel, Ulong Channel (probably one of the best sites we've dived so far); and of course the cliched Jellyfish lake and Blue holes. The water was warm, the currents reasonably gentle, except one dive at blue corner when we dropped in on the wrong point and battled upstream all the way. The dives:

Day 1, Dive 1. Iro wreck. [Not much life; Depth charges in the fore]
Day 1, Dive 2. Chandelier caves. [very interesting limestone formations]
Day 1, Dive 3. Mandarinfish lake [Nice setting, mandarin fish]
Eco explorer moves to German channel, anchors there.

Day 2, Dive 1. German channel (manta point) [manta rays, sharks, lively channel]
Day 2, Dive 2. Turtle cove. [drop down a hole; laser clams in cave]
Day 2, Dive 3. Dexter's wall.
Day 2, Dive 4. German wall. [night dive; sleeping parrotfish, filefish].

Day 3, Dive 1. Blue corner. [swim along a nice wall; reef hook at the corner; sharks, napoleon wrasse, Jacks].
Day 3, Dive 2. Virgin blue hole.
Day 3, Dive 3. Blue corner
Day 3, Dive 4. Turtle wall

Day 4, Dive 1. Big drop off [sort of mini blue corner, nice site.]
Packed lunch and took chase boats to Ulong.
Day 4, Dive 2. Ulong channel. [Super site: reef hook along rim of a bowl, sharks, wrasse, jacks, bait balls, tons of action; then drift along the lovely channel].
Day 4, Dive 3. Sailas cave [laser clams]
Chase boats return to Explorer in GC.
Day 4, Dive 4. German channel [Dusk dive: sleeping wite tips, octopus]

Early morning day 5, Eco explorer chugs off to Peliliu in early morning, anchors there.
Day 5, Dive 1. Peliliu wall [on this day, Peliliu dives were ok, but nothing special]
Day 5, Dive 2. Peliliu express
Day 5, Dive 3. Peliliu pocket
Day 5, Dive 4. Peliliu pocket (repeat)
Day 5, Dive 5. Barnum's wall [Night dive]

Early morning Day 6, Explorer returns back to GC, anchors there.
Day 6, Dive 1. Blue holes [Nice geography; depth charges outside cavel
Day 6, Dive 2. Big drop off
Day 6, Dive 3. German channel [Manta point, but no mantas]
Day 6, Dive 4. Blue corner [Dropped on wrong side, fought currents all dive]

Day 7. Jellyfish lake [just snorkeling, no dive.]
So, total of 24 dives plus the Jellyfish lake swim in six+ days. Four-five really memorable sites. Well worth a revisit.

About the photos:
Once again I was using my Canon G7 in its Canon WP-DC11 housing, with a single Inon Z220s strobe on slave. The thumbnails below are linked to larger photos. The photos were edited using Photoshop-Elements. All images are max 1000pixels wide and/or 800 pixels high.



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If you want the original of any of these, send me email.