An Exciting Second Day

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Wow! What an amazing day. It started with me waking up at about 4 am. I just couldn’t sleep any longer so I hopped on my computer and started updating this blog. Joe and Andy knocked at about 6ish to see if I was up to go get some breakfast at Palm Bay. I got an Omelet and it was delicious. After lunch and going back to our rooms to gear up, we met back at the lobby to wait for the driver to take us back to Sam’s Tours to get our second day of diving started. It was a rainy day with overcast but the diving was great. It cleared up for a bit here and there but with diving, you are going to get wet so really doesn’t matter if it’s raining. I am hoping for some nice sunny weather though. I need to come home with a tan to really show that I was off in the islands!

Our first dive was going to be our Specialty Dive called Blue Corner. You can only get that specialty dive in Palau. We sat at a table and filled out our paperwork and signed our lives away, then were briefed by our Dive Master Joedyn. We went over our dive plan and the constant current changes. There are two ways to enter Blue Corner and one is through Blue Holes. We need to enter from both points to receive that Specialty Dive. We took a 45 minute boat ride to the dive site, geared up and hit the water. It was breathtaking to see these blue holes and then a complete drop-off. We went down into Blue Corner and swam around for a bit then swam along the reef wall and hooked in and watched all the life around us. I got to see Barracuda, Black Tip Reef Sharks, White Tip Reef Sharks, lots of Tangs, Angels, Butterflies, Damsels, Jacks, Napoleon Wrasse and even an enormous Napoleon Wrasse that is used to being fed so it came very close. I was hooked in near Joedyn and he was able to bring Napoleon up very, very close. I even got to pet him…so amazing! We then unhooked and went through the sandy channel and along the reef back to the boat where we ate lunch and did some snorkeling as our surface interval.

Our second dive was back to Blue Corner to check and see if the currents were any better to dive into the other side. It wasn’t so we went back through Blue Hole and into Blue Corner. Was very similar to our first visit to Blue Corner but we got to do more swimming along the reef wall. I got to see so much I can’t even take the time to describe it all. Napoleon visited us again after we hooked off again and I got to pet him again, this time with no gloves on! A short while longer we surfaced and got back on the boat. No third dive today, but almost more exciting, Jellyfish Lake.

We arrived at Jellyfish Lake and got our permits checked. We were briefed by our guide, Nick, who was also our Videographer for the days diving. We were only to take our fins, mask and snorkel and of course a camera. The Jellyfish are very delicate and SCUBA can damage them as well as the ocean/lake floor has anaerobic bacteria which is slightly poisonous so you don’t want to disturb the floor. One last thing about the Jellys, they do not sting as there are no natural predators, except us humans. We took a short hike up and then down into the lake. We hopped in the lake and slowly and carefully swam out to the center area. First there were a couple Brown Jellyfish then more, then hundreds of thousands! You had to be there to really appreciate being able to swim with these delicate creatures. I felt them bouncing off me and was able to hold them and just appreciate their beauty. We were able to snorkel around for about 30 minutes then hiked back to the boat for a long, bumpy ride back to Sam’s Tours.

Once at Sam’s, we got some lunch and drinks and was able to watch the footage that Nick took of us throughout the days dives and Jelly adventure. The footage was incredible. I can’t wait to show you all. In the meantime, I posted a couple videos I took with my digital camera...enjoy! Now time to get some rest for tomorrow’s dives, which we will hopefully be finishing up our Specialty Dive in Blue Corner.