Showing Off Palau

Are you ready for more Palau pictures? I am! Our first dive on our very first day was to Palau's famous Oolong Channel, which our dive instructor Kostas briefed us was not the best dive you would do there, but perhaps the most important. He explained the underwater geography of how this unique site came to be. Millions of years ago it was a river of some sort, and the cliff on the other side of the channel was actually a waterfall. This channel is now a place where salt and fresh water mix, where wildlife hang out in mass quantities. Exhibit A, the giant fish ball:

My first blog giveaway: First person to accurately count the number of fish in this photo wins...

One of our first shark sightings. Had no idea at this point there would be 99+ others!

So much going on here!

This dogface puffer was actually taking a nap on the coral. 

I wish all the fish would take naps so we could get their pictures more easily.

Hawkbill turtle... the first of many. We stopped taking pictures after about the 5th one.

We had lunch on beautiful Oolong Island, where Survivor Palau was filmed a few years ago. If this doesn't feel like vacation, I don't know what does.

Baaaack to diving! We explored some of the outer reefs hoping to see more exotic shark species. We saw no bulls or hammerheads, but plenty of grays and white tips, and lots more awesome corals.

 Star burst

Hello jelly

So that was all day one. Not a bad first day, right?

Day two got off to a little slower start. Our guide took us by some of the World War II sites on our way to some of the northern dive sites in Palau. The Japanese owned these northern islands until the war's end. The Americans had control of the southern islands. Apparently Palau's waters are home to the most amount of undiscovered live ordnance still left from WWII in the world. EOD still has some work to do.

 Then one of our two boat motors broke down on our way to our first dive site. Since we were going to be the only dive boat in this part of Palau, our guide insisted on getting it fixed before we headed any further. They motored over to this seaplane wreck site for us to snorkel around on until the boat was fixed. So we got a bonus site out of the deal (plus a free dinner since it took a little longer to fix than they thought... thanks Sam's Tours!).

The first site we dove, West Passage, was known for its extremely vast and large collection of table corals. This one was about 10 ft. in diameter. This is one of the only places in the world where you can find table corals this massive. 

 And of course, where there is a reef in Palau, there are all sorts of awesome things growing on and around it to capture.

Our second dive featured this unique section of corals known as the Rose Garden. 

It also featured more sharks! This gray reef shark and his buddy hung around for a good five minutes so we could gawk at it.

The sun drifted away mid-afternoon. When that happens, the anemone close up to conserve heat and energy. When they close up, they expose their magnificent, bright colors. Hence the name magnificent anemone.

 And of course, there were tons and tons and tons of fish, all different shapes, colors and sizes.

Not a bad first 48 hours! Which means, yes, there are still 6 more dives' worth of pictures to go. 

Oh Palau... you little show off.