Turtle Cove and Blue Holes

Last Monday was the first day of diving in Palau for my friends. Katie got certified to dive last year, but the rest of the group were not divers. In preparation for their trip, they all decided to get certified so they could dive in Palau. Matt, Tiff, and Sara each independently completed a referral course which is the classroom learning and confined pool dives portion of certification. When they arrived here, they needed to finish the Open Water certification, so I signed them up for the two day course at Sam's. I arranged for them to have the same instructor I had, Joedyn. For this first day, they just went to Pincher's Cove to do some training exercises. Windy conditions kept them from going elsewhere, so they did both dives from Pincher's. You can read about their experience diving here.

Katie and I headed out on a different dive boat to do some real dives. Unseasonably high winds out of the northeast, up to 20 knots, created choppy waters and a bumpy ride out to the dive sites. We were never worried though because our driver Jake was excellent and expertly maneuvered us through the waves and made it a tolerable ride. We headed out through German Channel to a new dive site called Turtle Cove located across the channel from Big Drop-off. We put the gear on and get ready to dive in. Katie was nervous as she had done only a few dives since certification and nothing like Palau. Once she got in the water she was fine and dove like an expert.

At the beginning of the dive, we descended through a hole in the coral, like the Blue Holes. This hole was just as wide, but much narrower and I had to be careful not to brush the edges as I descended. The hole opened out to the open ocean at the bottom and we swam out and began drifting along the reef wall. Clarity was not quite as good as other sites, but we still got to see plenty of fish, a few sharks, and Katie was thrilled to see her first turtle. At the end of the dive we ascended and climbed back onto the boat. One of the dive group, Bob, was missing. He had mistakenly began following a different group while underwater. We waited for a while checking other groups as they surfaced and inquiring if they had an extra Bob. He surfaced with another group and we picked him up.

At lunch, we got to know the other divers on our boat. There was Brian and Matt, a Canadian father and son who had just finishing diving wrecks in Chuuk. Brian is a professional photographer and carried a massive underwater camera with him on our dives. There was also Bob and his son Max, Americans who are living in Japan. We also had Jeff and Tim, two brothers traveling the world as a bit of a mid-life crisis. Tim is a commercial fisherman in Alaska (just like the people on Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch") and a good early season haul allowed him to see the world. They just came from Belize where Tim got certified to dive and recently spent a few months in Nepal. They are meeting up with their other brother in February and summiting Kilimanjaro and touring Africa. A really interesting group to talk with and a fun dive group.

After lunch, we dove Blue Holes. Katie was excited to do another descent through a coral hole. We made it through safely again and explored the cave before heading out along the reef. More sharks this time and many schools of fish. We made it all the way down to Blue Corner before going up and over the reef. After ascending, we discovered we had lost Bob again. This time he had gotten separated and was off by himself, but finished his dive before surfacing. We found him and picked him up, but not before making plenty of "where's Bob" jokes. We headed back to Sam's where Katie and I met up with the others and swapped dive stories.

On the way home, we stopped at the Happy Fish Market. A little shack on the docks, you buy fresh whole fish right off the boat at cheap prices. We picked out five Red Snappers and had them scaled and gutted. After a quick stop at the grocery store, we returned home to cook up our fish dinner. Then we realized we had to fillet the fish. My apartment came with a few knives, but none proved very effective. My good knives are in storage in Virginia. I borrowed a knife from Christy that was better and after considerable time was able to successfully fillet the fish. Sara sauteed them while Tiff prepared a potato side dish. The hard work paid off and the dinner was excellent. Everyone was pretty tired from the day of diving and we had another big day ahead of us, so we hit the sack early.

See pictures related to this post