Completing Diving Certification

Tuesday was UN day, a national holiday commemorating Palau's nearly fifty year tenure as a UN Trust Territory following WWII. Having the day off work, it was time to finish the certification process for scuba diving. Upon arrival at Sam's, it promptly began pouring rain. This being Palau, after thirty minutes the rain stopped, the sky cleared, and it was a beautiful sunny day. For today's dives we were accompanied by a group of tourists. The first dive site was Blue Holes and to get there it took a forty-five minute boat ride through the rock islands. The boat ride by itself made the trip worthwhile and was just gorgeous. Among the islands the water is calm and protected, but once we went through the German Channel the wind picked up and it was wavy. The winds are supposed to die down in the next few weeks and the good dive season begins, but we got to contend with the waves. Rolling around on the surface does not inspire one to jump in the water, but once again I calmed my nerves, strapped on my gear and dove in. Once underwater it was calm except for a mild current. After descending only a few feet, Ryan alerted me to a sea turtle swimming nearby. They are amazing creatures, gliding by effortlessly. We continued descending making it down to 85 feet. There we got to go into the entrance of one of the blue holes, holes in the reef that open down to caverns and out to the open ocean. The other more experienced group of divers descended through the holes, by Joedyn did not let us novice divers do it. We did get to see one of the holes and it is an impressive cavern with light streaming in from above through the hole. We continued along the reef observing the various aquatic life, including a jellyfish with a stinger that we avoided. We saw a few smaller sharks, mainly reef and white-tip. Had we continued along the reef, we would have reached Blue Corner which has a bunch of sharks. However, our air was running low and Blue Corner would have to wait for another day. After ascending, the boat picked us up and we headed back to calmer waters.

Back through the German Channel, we tied up at Big Drop Off for a lunch break. We were near a beach, so I snorkeled ashore and walked along the pristine natural beach enjoying the sand between my toes and sun on my back. During the lunch break we got a chance to snorkel around the area and there was a ton of fish and coral. It is called Big Drop Off because the reef ends and it gets very deep. This was our next dive, so we geared up and dove in. After doing our final skill, an out of air exercise, we continued down the drop off. We swam along the side of the reef looking at the various coral and fish. The fish were plentiful of all types, such as Angel, sweet lips, and parrot-fish. Off in the distance, we saw a grey shark, a medium sized shark larger than any we saw on the first dive. It was no Jaws, but it was definitely something I would not want to provoke. We saw a small leaf fish, which blend into the coral and looks exactly like a leaf. We continued along and I made it down to 75 feet. As we headed to the surface, we saw another sea turtle. After an interesting dive we surfaced and climbed aboard the boat. The boat trip back to Sam's was as pretty as the ride there. We saw some of the islands that were used for filming Survivor. When we returned to Sam's, we turned in the gear and then completed the paperwork for certification. I am now officially certified as an open water scuba diver. We said our good-byes to Joedyn and headed home for some much need rest.

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