Fourth Day full of Great Diving

Friday, June 13, 2008

Another early morning for me, woke up at about 4 and just couldn’t sleep any longer. I tried to just doze but didn’t do much of that either. I finally got up and got dressed and met up with Andy and Joe for breakfast again at Palm Bay. It is just so close and they do have good breakfast. We sit outside on the balcony looking over the bay. After we were done with breakfast we just hung around and checked out all the fish and clams that were living right under the restaurant. Moorish Idols, lots of Damsels, Triggers, Watchman Gobies, Puffers, and a few others were just forging for foods so I crumbled up some of my toast and gave them a snack. Andy even spotted a very tiny Sweetlips which was so cute. At first it took Joe and me a few minutes to figure out that it was a Sweetlips, but we finally got it. After a while we went back to our rooms to get our stuff and met back in the lobby for the driver. We ended up walking down to Sam’s Tours since the driver was a bit late but it’s a nice short walk. We got all our gear ready and got on our boat, the Whale Shark. Jason was our Dive Master again, which was good because he has been an excellent guide and has a great personality. Our dive plan was to dive along Ulong Channel again since we were not able to actually dive the channel the first time, then dive along Ulong Wall. We would then dock back at Sam’s to let those who were not doing a third dive off the boat then head back around the corner for another Wreck Dive.

After a short 30 minute boat ride we were at Ulong Channel. I loved this dive because it was quite shallow, my total depth was at 58 feet, the visibility was excellent and the sun really made for some great pictures! I have taken just over 900 pictures already and plan on taking many, many more! We dove along Ulong Channel for over an hour since we stayed so shallow; my average was about 40 feet. I got to see so many beautiful corals, clams, nudibranchs, Basket Stars, clownfish and anemones, tiny gobies, chromis, an Emperor Angel, sharks, huge cucumbers, and even a watchman/pistol pair. Oh, and we saw a couple enormous clams, and when I say enormous, I mean about 6-8 feet! It could totally swallow me! Such a great dive!

We went back to Ulong beach for lunch and I had some very good Sushi. We sat and chatted with Katrina and Eric, another dive couple on their honeymoon and Kelly. Kelly just arrived and this was her first day of diving in Palau. She is an amazing person, has sold her business so is now retired and is a professional vacationer! She lived in South America for a year and has now been traveling around doing diving. What a life! We hung out on the beach for about an hour and a half as our surface interval then went back out to dive Ulong Wall. We were going to drift with the currents and enjoy the dive. Along the wall were lots of Sea Fans, Carnation Corals, huge starfish, lots more nudibranchs, and on and on and on. We drifted for a bit then the currents changed so we just drifted back into the channel which was fine with me! Got to see so many more beautiful life and this time got a bit more up close and personal with a few. We dove for about an hour then headed back to Sam’s.

Our third dive, it was just Andy, Joe and I with Jason as our guide. I had mentioned before to Jason that I wanted to see cleaner shrimp so he took us to Chuyo Maru, a Wreck Dive. I was a bit high on my no decompression limit so I stayed a bit shallower than Joe and Jason. Andy buddied up with me and helped make sure I didn’t get too far off the no deco time. We just hung around a mast of the boat and checked out all sorts of cool little fish. Small gobies, barnacle blennies, fangblennies, cardinals and Andy even got up nice and close to a Green Sea Turtle grazing on sponges. It saw him and started to swim away but not before Andy got some great shots. Jason came over and pointed out some very small, clear Cleaner Shrimp and I tried to get some good shots but the visibility was a bit poor. I managed to get a decent shot though. We didn’t stay down long, about 30 minutes then headed back to Sam’s.

We rinsed all our gear then sat down for a nice cold drink and some dinner. I had a grilled chicken sandwich which was delicious. It hit the spot. With our full belly’s and a full days worth of diving, the three of us headed back to West Plaza hotel and called it a night…at about 8:30 pm. Diving really does tire you out!