Palau - Chapter Two

The anchorage in Palau

It's hard for me to believe, but we've been in Palau for another entire month since I wrote the last blog update.  It's not often that we are in any one place for so long, and I often get tired of being in "town" for long stretches of time, but the set-up here for liveaboards is so nice, and we've met such a great group of people, that I have really enjoyed our stay.

Fred after a day of diving.  You can see a few of the many Sam's Tours boats at the dock and masts from the sailboats in the anchorage in the distance.

 Fred returned to the boat shortly after I posted the last blog entry and we did another round of awesome scuba diving when he got back.  Coincidentally, some friends from Sun valley, Tuck Hall and Dave Stone, arrived at that time also.

Tuck Hall taking an underwater photo

They had planned a dive trip here completely independently of us, and luckily it worked out that we were all here in Palau at the same time. We had a great time hanging out with them.  Most days while they were here we dove together, then had some drinks at the Bottom Time Bar and then separated for showers and met up again later for dinner.  I dove three days with them and Jeff and Fred did a few more, one of which was diving some of the wrecks in the lagoon and another was a day on the outer reef at Peleliu - home to one of the bloodiest battles in the South Pacific during WWII.

Dave Stone diving on the Jake Plane

This nudibranch is about three inches long

The very first day we dove with them was a really exceptional day of diving.  We went to Blue Corner and this may have been our best Blue Corner dive ever.  On the flats we saw two lionfish, a very colorful nudibranch, and a large moray eel which was all the way out of it's hole, as well as the usual triggerfish, big napoleon wrasses, reef sharks sleeping in the sand, and a big school of yellowfin barracuda.  Next we swam over to the edge of the reef and although there didn't seem to be a lot of current, there were quite a few sharks and some giant trevally, blue trevally and mackerels all swimming around.  We got hooked onto the reef and were relaxing and watching the show go by and suddenly there was some sort of frenzy going on below us, and sharks and big napoleon wrasses were all attacking this one particular spot on the reef where apparently an injured fish had hidden himself in a hole.  I was surprised to see larger fish attacking the hole among the many sharks. 

This Napolean Wrasse is about three feet long - photo by Tuck Hall

Moray eel - photo by Tuck Hall

Also while Tuck and Dave were here, Fred, Jeff and I all did our 100th dive.  Again, coincidentally, Fred and Jeff's 100th dive was the same dive.  Fred was certified before we started this trip, but Jeff happened to do exactly the number of dives he needed to catch up while Fred was back in the States.  Apparently, there is a tradition of diving your 100th dive naked, but both guys decided to pass on that option and went clad in their normal dive attire.  This dive was a very nice trip down one of the Blue Holes which are like big vertical chimneys in the reef that you drop down through into an underwater cave.  You check out the cave and then exit out of the cave's mouth which puts you on the outside edge of the reef near Blue Corner.  Then you drift along this reef until you get to Blue Corner.  This particular visit to Blue Corner wasn't as action packed as the day before, and there was absolutely nothing going on at the place where the shark frenzy had occurred the day before, but there was still plenty to see on the flats.

Fred and Jeff on their 100th dive!

 I had gotten behind on my record keeping in my dive book and didn't even realize I was doing my 100th dive when I did it, so I was spared the "to dress or not to dress" decision process.  I was quite pleased when I realized later that my 100th dive was among my favorite of the dives I did here in Palau.  The dive was in Ulong Channel, which we've done multiple times and which I always enjoy because of the truly magnificent coral there, but the trip we did that day was very different from our previous trips there.  That day, which was near the full moon, the current was flowing very strongly into the channel and once we entered the channel we were swept along faster and faster as the channel got narrower and shallower.  Most of the drift dives we've done previously were either along an outer reef where you have coral on one side only, or through large passes in the reef where you can't even see the other side, and we've always had plenty of water beneath us.  Ulong channel is different in that it is much skinnier, especially on the inside end, so you had to steer yourself along as the current swept you through the skinny parts.  It was rather exhilarating and is a dive I won't forget any time soon.

Angie - not actually my 100th dive - but it does show my favorite new toy - the underwater camera!  Photo by Tuck Hall

After Tuck and Dave left, Fred dove a few more days and since then our days have mostly been either project or shopping days.  On project days we do some sort of boat project, the biggest of which has been to repair our large dinghy.  This is our third attempt at repairing this dinghy, but this time we've used a different adhesive (the epoxy from Zodiac that we used previously will apparently NOT set up correctly in a humid environment - a fact that the Zodiac people somehow never thought to mention) and we added some reinforcing brackets, so we are hoping for significantly different results this time.  Fred decided on this approach after getting advice from many of the other cruisers here, and some very kind Air Force personnel (who we met while diving with Sam's and who are stationed here in Palau doing civic works projects).  The folks at Sam's Tours were also nice enough to let us use one of their workshops without which we would never have been able to do the repair since it rains here just about every day, so getting the dinghy dry outdoors would have been impossible.  We just got the dinghy back in the water yesterday, and so far the repair looks good.  We're hoping for the best since this dinghy is the one we use when we go diving by ourselves, and we think there may be opportunities to do that in the Philippines, which is where we plan to head next. 

Our on-shore home in Palau

Most of our days in Palau start with breakfast and coffee on the boat, after which we clean up, and by that time it's usually already ferociously hot. (When I read that the average temp here was 82 I mistakenly thought it meant that the average HIGH temp was 82 - but no - it meant average.)  After breakfast we gather our shower bags and the trash and our big water bottle and load it all into the dinghy and head ashore.  We tie up at the Sam's Tours dinghy dock where we are able to dump our trash and fill our water bottle with filtered drinking water, all for free.  Then we usually head into the air-conditioned computer room for some internet time, which isn't exactly free, but I think we'd be happy to pay just for the air-conditioning, so it seems like a pretty good deal.  Next we take a very hot and sweaty 30-40 minute walk into town after which we reward ourselves with lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant.  Emaimelei is one of our favorite lunch spots.  This is a locals favorite where they serve enormous portions of delicious Filipino and Asian dishes for a very reasonable price. After lunch we do any other town errands we have and then head for the two large grocery stores, which are conveniently located directly across the street from one another.  They are both well stocked, but with slightly different items.  We usually hit both and then call Johnson, our favorite Palauan taxi driver, for a ride home.  Johnson always has a good story for us about Palau goings-on, and his car has great air-conditioning (are you picking up on the theme here?)  Back at Sam's we load all our shopping bags into the dinghy and take them out to the boat, which is now sweltering hot, so we put everything away as fast as we can, and then we head back to Sam's for my favorite time of day - the cocktail/shower hour. 

Inside Sam's (also known as the Yacht Club and the Bottom Time Bar)

One of the very best things about Sam's is that there is almost always an interesting crowd at the bar in the late afternoon and early evening.  It's a great spot on the water, shaded, and with a nice breeze blowing through.  All the dive boats are returning then too, and we've become friendly with quite a few of the dive guides, so we get to chat with them, and whichever dive guests we also know, and there's usually a good collection of other cruisers at the bar also.  Among the other sailors there's a great mix of people - some of whom have been here for years and some, like us, who are just passing through.  So we often spend a very pleasurable hour or two swapping jokes and lies with whoever is around, and wandering off at some point to make use of Sam's lovely (and free!) showers.  Having this great social scene right in our backyard has made our long stay here very enjoyable.  We're going to miss the Sam's gang for sure!

Cecille and Fey - two of the wonderful ladies at Sam's

Milo, Michelle and Minda always take great care of us!

For dinner, we usually head back to the boat unless it's been a tiring project or diving day, in which case we often eat at Sam's (they have great salads, amazingly fresh fish, and, in my opinion, the island's best cheeseburger) or sometimes we'll get a gang together and head down the road to Kramer's where Renee, Jane and Patrick make great food and where many of the island's expats gather for evening socializing. 

Fun highlights during our stay here have included Sam's birthday party, where the musical entertainment was provided by some local bands along with a group of Sam's regulars, including dive guides and sailors, who put on a really good show after practicing only one week.  We also very much enjoyed the Cinco de Mayo party hosted by the Royal Belau Yacht Club at Sam's.  This yearly event includes lots of tequila drinking (of course!) along with a Mexican food cooking competition.  The idea is that the contestants all bring a Mexican dish and everyone who attends gets to try them all and judge them anonymously. Jeff entered, and won first prize, with his awesome pork green chili, which was definitely delicious enough to have won on it's own, but Fred was taking no chances, so he ran an amazing PR campaign, just to seal the deal.  If anyone is considering running for office, I sincerely recommend Fred as your campaign manager.  Fred's blend of aboveboard charm and willingness to make shady deals under the table can really get the job done!  I was way too busy enjoying the scrumptious feast of Mexican food to be any help during the competition, but I earned my keep earlier in the day by being the number one pot scrubber.  The first place prize was a gift certificate for $100 to Elilai, a posh restaurant that we haven't tried yet.  We're going tonight and very much looking forward to it.

We're also getting the boat ready for our next hop to the Philippines. We may have a bit of a wait for the right weather window, but we're asking lots of questions of the Filipinos we've met here and the sailors who've been there already, and reading our guide and dive books about there, and getting pretty excited to see the place.   We think we'll be heading out some time later this week.

Palau

Palau
March 9 - April 10, 2011

View from a Rock Island Beach

I can't believe we've been in Palau for a month already.  Time flies.  I know many people say that time seems to go by quicker every year, and I definitely agree, and would also add that the effect is magnified while cruising.  I guess it's something about going different places and meeting lots of new people, but I am continually amazed each time I stop to figure out how long we've been in any given port. 

We first arrived in Palau on a Saturday afternoon and were pleasantly surprised at how quickly we got cleared into the country.  We had heard (correctly!) that it was a quite a bit more expensive to check in here on the weekend, and so I somehow imagined that all the officials were going to have to be called in from home (and hence the extra overtime charges), but they all showed up promptly and we got checked in in plenty of time for us to move the boat around and pick up a free mooring at the Royal Belau Yacht Club.  The Yacht Club is part of Sam's Tours, which is one of the most popular scuba diving operations in Palau (which is saying a lot - this place has WAY more tourists than anyplace we've been since Fiji).  We'd read about Sam's in advance so we knew to expect the floating docks filled with dive boats, and the free mooring balls and showers they make available to cruisers, but we were pleasantly surprised by the hustle and bustle (we arrived about the time all the dive boats were returning for the day), the very relaxed and breezy outdoor bar and restaurant and the big smiles and welcomes from the staff. Sam's definitely is our kind of yacht club!  We quickly ordered a few beers and an appetizer or two and found out where the showers were and enjoyed it all immensely.

Then we asked how to call a cab, because we had our hearts set on going into town to a place called Taj for dinner.  All our guide books and Martin (the lovely German we dove with in Pohnpei who has been to Palau many times) had raved about the Indian food at Taj, and since we all love Indian food we were very excited to go there.  We were not disappointed!  The food was truly delicious.  The Tandoori Chicken appetizer was so moist and flavorful, the breads were perfect, and the entrees (we ordered four for only three of us!) were all uniquely wonderful and layered with flavors ranging from subtle to supremely hot - just how we like it.  We also met and chatted with Robert, the extremely personable and gracious owner, who has been there each time we've gone and always makes you feel right at home.  Then we left and I tried not to moan too loudly in the taxi and managed to roll myself down the dock, into the dinghy and into my bunk for a good night's sleep.

The next day Fred packed and prepared for his trip back to the States to take care of some business, do some skiing, and visit with friends.  We had intended to get to Palau earlier, so he could do some diving before he left, but the weather gods had other plans and they delayed our departure from Yap so he ended up flying out right after we got here.

A few days after Fred left, Jeff and I discovered the down side of staying on a free mooring ball, which is that when a Tsunami warning is issued you get asked to leave - and to leave quickly.  We were hanging out on the boat one evening at about 5 PM, relaxing and watching a movie on the laptop when we heard a knock on the hull and popped up to find Sam and Gary alongside in a dinghy telling us about the big earthquake in Japan and saying a Tsunami Warning had been issued for Palau for 7:30 PM and that they needed us to get off the mooring we were on right away because it was for one of the big boats that needed to be moved off the floating dock, and these guys had many other boats they needed to move too, so they needed us off quick.  Needless to say, this was a bit of a shock.  It normally takes us about an hour to get everything in the boat stowed away and transition from life at anchor/mooring to sailing.  Luckily for us, not everything had to be done before we got off this mooring ball, since we be inside a nice flat lagoon for at least an hour before getting out of the reef, but we had to quickly figure out which jobs HAD to be done before we left the mooring and which jobs could wait.  Then, suddenly the guys were there already, and although I hadn't actually timed it, I would have sworn it was only ten minutes later, not fifteen, but we did a fast last minute check that there were no lines in the water that could wrap around the prop, and away we went.  The big boat was coming up behind us already, so as soon as I saw the two dinghys at our bow move to either side I went ahead to get out of it's way as soon as possible.  What I couldn't see was that one dinghy was actually being towed by the other, so my trying to go between them didn't work out too well, but I quickly realized my mistake and reversed enough to let the guy (who was rushing us off so he could help the big boat pick up the mooring after we got off) pull both dinghys over to one side of our boat, and off we went.

Let me explain that the moorings for Sam's are in a small area, protected by an inner reef with a skinny pass entrance, all of which is inside the much bigger, much deeper Malakal harbor area which is protected by islands and is inside the still bigger outer lagoon which is protected by the outer reef.  We got ourselves through the pass in the internal reef and then slowed down to a crawl and put the autopilot on and finished getting the boat ready for sea as we puttered along inside the big harbor.  We'd been told that some of the other sailboats were going to motor around inside this big harbor until they thought the tsunami danger had passed, and then they planned to return to the their moorings. Another sailboat, which also needed to leave it's mooring completely had decided to anchor inside the little bay near Sam's.  We discussed both of these options, but decided that we just didn't have enough local knowledge to be cruising around in the big harbor after dark, and we didn't want to be anchored in the little harbor if the tsunami actually hit, so we quickly prepared for an unexpected night at sea and headed out the outer pass to the deep, deep sea - which really is the safest place for a boat if a tsunami is coming.  The tsunami effects are only felt where the water shallows up, in the middle of the ocean they say you don't even notice it as it goes by. Luckily for us, all these Pacific atolls are surrounded by very deep water right up to the outer reefs, so it was no problem to get out into really deep water quickly.  Unluckily for us, and unbeknownst to us in our protected anchorage, the wind was blowing 20 knots outside the harbor and the seas were big.  We hadn't had dinner before we left the anchorage, and we had to rush to get out of the pass before dark, and as soon as we were out we were in some big big waves which combined with an empty stomach made me nauseous immediately and I remained that way for the rest of the night which we spent slowly sailing back and forth keeping an eye on the very large ship which was a few miles away and had also evacuated the anchorage and was circling around in our vicinity.

The Jack Loomis - our neighbor at sea

 

 

 

 

When the sun came up we headed back in after a chat on the VHF radio with the big ship next to us.  I was hoping they could tell us that the Tsunami warning had been lifted, and whether Palau had sustained any damage, but they only said that the warning was only for the previous evening (which I knew, but I was worrying about aftershocks in Japan that might have generated additional warnings).  They also said that they didn't think Koror, the main town in Palau, would have been damaged because of it's location.  I had assumed that they would have had access to reports of actual conditions ashore, but this didn't seem to be the case.  We motored back into the pass and were very relieved to see that everything on shore looked normal.  We really didn't know what to expect, and while we were hoping for the best, it was easy to imagine the worst while we were sailing around in the dark all night.  We were also pleasantly surprised to see that the boat which had been put onto our mooring the night before was pulling back over to the dock as we came in, so we picked up our old mooring and re-inflated the dinghy and headed into shore as quick as we could to order up a huge gigantic breakfast, after which we had a big nap.

Coincidentally, a few days later we were invited on a tour of the big boat that was our ocean neighbor the night of the tsunami scare.  Turns out it was a US Naval vessel called the Jack Loomis.  I was interested to see the boat itself, because they'd been our neighbors, but then I found out that the boat's mission is to transport all the equipment needed by Marines to launch an invasion somewhere.   This made me even more curious, especially since I had recently finished a book about the WWII action in the Pacific islands, so I had read about one island assault after another.  So, on the day of the tour we got on the launch (one of the Sam's Tour boats) and headed out to see the Jack Loomis.  We pulled up to the back and had to climb up a big ladder to an outer platform, which was a bit like a big fire escape on an apartment building.  We went in and signed the security list while gawking at the three huge tanks that were already in sight. 

Tanks

 Then we saw the huge engine room (the engine itself is as big as a room!) and the control room and some other cool stuff before being led into the main hold to see the assault equipment.  We had been told to be prepared to be amazed, but I was still taken by surprise.  There were tanks of every size, and bulldozers and jeeps, and canons on wheels, and armored cars... and there were a LOT of them. 

I kinda like this one...

maybe they won't miss it - they've got a lot of them!

I went up to our very nice tour guide, Carey, and said, you were right this is amazing, and he said just wait, you haven't seen anything yet, this is just one level - there are five more!   There were fire trucks, and ambulance jeeps, and more tanks in different sizes, and an entire level of jeeps, and huge generators on wheels, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot more stuff.  It was really amazing.  By the time we got to the last level I wished everyone else would quit taking pictures so we could finish because my legs were tired and that was before we climbed back up the five levels of stairs to see the bridge and the helicopter deck and look out over the bow where the GIGANTIC anchor chain could be seen.  Wow.  The entire tour was really cool.

Canon

We've also been doing lots of scuba diving while we've been here. We've done it all with Sam's Tours, rather than doing in from our own dinghy, because the best dive sites are quite far away from the main anchorage, and the currents can be quite strong, so it's good to go with folks with local knowledge.  The diving in Palau is amazing, and you don't have to take my word for it, take a look at any top ten list of diving places in any of the travel magazines and you'll find Palau listed somewhere near the top.  Deservedly so.  What I knew about Palau diving before getting here was that I would see lots of sharks and turtles and big pelagic fish like tuna, trevally and snappers along with big schools of smaller fish. 

Shark and a big school of fish

What I didn't know about Palau is that there would be groupers the size of small love seats and that the coral here is also fantastic.  The coral alone on most Palau dives is as good as or better than the best coral dive in lots of places AND if the currents are right you also see crazy amounts of fish and sharks as well.  Most places it's either one or the other, and usually neither is as good as both often are on a dive here in Palau. 

The coral is amazing!

Our very first day of diving here we were lucky enough to go to the deservedly famous Blue Corner and we caught it on a very good day indeed.  We saw huge schools of medium size fish and we saw reef sharks and gray sharks and really big Napolean Wrasses.  We saw the two biggest groupers I've ever seen under an equally huge table coral.  We saw a turtle, a lion fish, and a really cute little eagle ray. We saw a big school of medium sized barracuda, some clown trigger fish, lots of titan trigger fish and bumphead parrrotfish and a really lovely bit of cabbage coral with some gorgeous yellow fish schooling above it. 

I wonder what this school of fish is studying?

This was all in ONE dive.  It really was almost too much.  I'd see something cool and try to point it out to Jeff only to discover that he was simultaneously trying to point out something else cool to me.  And so was the dive guide and the other people we were diving with.  And everybody was pointing at something different!  It was crazy.  My neck hurt afterwards from trying to look everywhere at once.  I was an instant fan. 

Eagle Rays at Blue Corner

Another day we went to Ulong channel.  We did three dives in this area and I really, really mean it when I say that the coral there was breathtaking.  It was like a huge coral garden with an amazing variety of gigantic and very healthy corals.  Then we went to Siaes corner and saw amazing shark and fish action along with more beautiful coral.  This was definitely one of my favorite days of diving ever!  We've done lots of other dives here in Palau also.  I think seven days of diving so far, and not all the dives are quite as good as the two I've described, but none of them were bad.  Even the worst was better than the best day of diving I've had in many other places, but when the diving is good in Palau, it is off the charts unbelievably good!

Did I mention that the coral is nice?

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to capture this big picture amazing-ness with an underwater camera.  Even when the underwater visibility is great, things more than 10 feet away just don't show up in pictures very well (something about refraction I think), but I'll post as many close ups of cool stuff as I can (based on the internet speed at the time of posting - it varies quite a bit here).

Eel

Oh, I almost forgot to tell about the day we saw the octopus.  It was our third dive of the day, and somehow I just wasn't expecting a lot from this particular dive.  I don't know if it was the dive briefing or if I am just getting ridiculously spoiled by Palau diving in general (yes, it's probably that), but I just wasn't expecting much.  The coral was nice and we saw three of the four different colors of scorpion leaf fish that we had been told we might see (these are pretty cool, very strange looking and very easy to miss) but somehow it all seemed a bit ho-hum.  Right up until we saw the octopus.  It wasn't like a man eating octopus in a scary movie, it was a little guy about two feet long total, but he just did not seem to be scared of us.  The very few other times we've seen octopus they usually hide in a hole very quickly, but not this guy.  He seemed to be eating something and there was a fish who was very interested in whatever he had and seemed to be sometimes attacking him.  The octopus kept moving about and each time he moved he changed his color and texture to match whatever surface he was on.  He could go from light and smooth to spotted and bumpy in a second.  Even though I knew right where to look it was hard to see him when he was still.  Then he'd move again and change color and texture again.  He swam away from the bottom a couple times, which I'd never seen one do before.  We got to watch him for about 10 minutes while he snacked away and the fish kept pecking at him.  So much for a ho-hum dive.

Octopus

All you fans of Survivor might also be interested to know that we have snorkeled in Jellyfish Lake and we've had lunch on one of the beaches used in the Palau show.  It now has picnic tables and lots of rats, but still - I was on another Survivor beach! (We were on one in the Marquesas also.)  For those of you who don't watch Survivor, let me explain that Jellyfish lake is a marine lake which was once a part of the ocean, but has now been closed off.  The jellyfish who live there don't have many predators so they have lost their stingers and multiplied wildly.  When you swim there you can swim right into their midst and be surrounded by hundreds of these pretty jellyfish and not be stung.

Jellyfish Lake

We also recently took the sailboat out and anchored in the Rock Islands for a few days.  This trip was delayed a bit because the starter on the boat's diesel engine decided it was a good time to have a melt down right before we wanted to leave.  Thank goodness this happened while we were near town though, and not after we got out there!  It wasn't too tough a fix after we figured out from the engine diagrams which part it was that was that the smoke was coming from, then turned to our favorite repair expert Nigel Calder (almost every cruising boat I've been on has a copy of his repair book onboard) for tips on how to remove it.  Jeff was able to get it out after just a very little bit of knuckle banging and cursing with only a few retrievals by me (with the little hands) of the wrench that fell into the bilge.  Sam was nice enough to have one of his mechanics drive us to the shop where they get their cars repaired and those guys were able to rewire it and replace something inside, and then we managed to get it back on without losing any of the nuts and bolts into a space too small for anyone to reach - this is always a hazard during any boat repair (that or important pieces fall overboard if you are working up top). 

The Rock Islands are a crazy maze of tall, mushroom shaped islands located a bit south of Koror.  There are many different anchorages there.  I picked one out based on it being close to some good snorkeling at a place called Cemetery Reef, and relatively easy to get the boat into and out of (many of the other anchorages have 2 meter deep reefs across the entrance at low tide, and our keel is 2.5 meters deep, so we'd need to time the tides to get into and out, which I think just adds unnecessary anxiety - I'm going away from town to relax!) 

Our lovely Rock Island anchorage

The anchorage itself turned out to be lovely, but we went past Cemetery Reef on the way to it and I was surprised to see that it was surrounded by buoys, like a swim area in a lake, and that there were a couple tour boats tied onto some of them.  In hindsight I realized I shouldn't have been surprised.  It's just that since we left Fiji we've been visiting places with very few tourists, but Palau has a LOT of them and I forgot to take that into account.  In other countries, as soon as we get away from town the only boats we see are fishermen or very occasionally another cruising sail boat.  I forgot that Palau has a lot of visitors and that not all of them scuba dive and those who don't often go on these snorkel tours.  So, after thinking all this through, I thought I had made the appropriate adjustments to my expectations of Cemetery Reef, and decided that I still wanted to go see it even though we wouldn't have the place all to ourselves.  Turns out I didn't adjust my expectations quite enough. 

Jeff driving to the snorkeling

The next day when we dinghyed around the corner to the reef there were a couple tour boats there already, which we had expected, but were hoping we might be pleasantly surprised.  We decided to get in anyway and take a look - we'd just try to stay away from the other people.  But while we were there boat after boat after boat pulled up.  We snorkeled one side of the reef, which is really quite lovely, and decided to head back to the dinghy, where we continued to watch boats pull up.  Eventually there were ten tour boats there. They each had at least 15 passengers, some more like 20, all snorkeling in an area about the size of a football field.  But the most amazing thing is that almost everyone had on a life jacket.  Some even had kick boards.  The kick board people tended to form big flotillas and move slowly around the reef together.  This seemed very bizarre to me. 

Snorkelers with life jackets

When we returned to Sam's and I was telling this tale to another cruiser, he nicely pointed out that at least they were having fun.  I guess that's true, and I've got no problem with that, but I wish so many of them hadn't been standing on top of the beautiful coral they were there to see.  Unfortunately this problem isn't limited to the snorkelers.  Many of the scuba divers here also seem not to be aware or not to care that touching the coral kills it.  As I mentioned before there are lots of strong currents here and unfortunately lots of divers just grab onto coral to stop themselves so they can watch the action go by.  They recently held a meeting, while we've been here, about maybe closing Blue Corner temporarily to let the coral heal itself some.  Divers at this location are meant to use reef hooks to anchor themselves when the current is strong (and some people think this is a problem in itself), but in the very few dives we've done here ourselves we've seen lots of divers hugging coral or standing on coral or grabbing onto it to steady themselves while they take pictures of the coral. It's a shame, and I hope the people here figure out some way to stop the damage this causes.  I do know they are trying.

The rest of our Rock Island adventure was every bit as relaxing as we'd hoped it would be.  We had tucked ourselves into a beautiful little anchorage and we rarely saw another boat while we there.  We listened to the birds and admired the lovely islands and really enjoyed our four night stay.

Fred will return to Palau in a few days and we're waiting on some additional information from our weather guru Susan before deciding where the next leg of the journey will take us.

Yap, Federated States of Micronesia

I've gotten a bit behind on the blog, so let me first say that as many of you already know, we are currently in Palau (which was not affected in any way by the big earthquake in Japan - hooray!) We have been in Palau for about three weeks now. Fred flew back to Idaho a few days after we got here to take care of some business and do some skiing, so Jeff and I have been enjoying Palau on our own. We really like it here, but we also really liked Yap, so I wanted to put up this blog about our experiences there before I start writing about Palau.




Our time in Yap was pleasant right from the start. We arrived at entrance through the reef fairly late in the day, but the channel was very well marked, so we were able to head into the lagoon and get the anchor down well before dark. We weren't able to raise any authorities on the radio, but we were pretty tired after a seven day sail anyway, so it was kind of nice to not have to inflate the dinghy and go ashore to do the entry paperwork. Instead we got the lines straightened away and put the shade canvas up and toasted Yap from the cockpit. The Yap anchorage is very close to the local basketball court (which was a very nice facility with a roof and some bleachers), so we were able to see and hear some of the game that was in progress. Jeff was saying what torture that would be for Hughsie if he was on the boat - that he would probably try to swim and join the game, but we were all content to relax a bit and enjoy knowing we had a full night's sleep in a calm anchorage ahead of us.



The next morning one of the entry officials called us on the radio and we arranged to meet him ashore at 10 AM. He said he would come to the dock and show us the way to his office. He not only did that, but he also called all the other offcials we needed to see, and they all came to his office to sign us in. This was great, and is definitely not always the case. Sometimes Fred has to spend a couple hours walking all over town trying to find the various buildings for all the officials we need to see, and once he finds the right place he is often told that there is one particular person he needs to talk to who is out right then, so he'll need to come back later. So, having everyone meet us in one spot was great.



After doing the necessary paperwork, Fred needed to take the Quarantine officers out to the boat, but Jeff and I were allowed to wander about onshore while he did so. We noticed right away how clean Yap is, and that there were very nice roadside plantings, and lots of smiling faces. We found a fairly large grocery store near the anchorage and got directions to the ATM which we headed off for after meeting up with Fred who was finished with the officials by then. We were stopped on the corner by a slick looking young fellow who was flashing a map and saying something I didn't quite understand. It turned out that this guy was from the Visitors Bureau Information booth across the street and he was telling us about the free maps and brochures they had there. We got the maps along with a lot of genuinely enthusiastic information from this nice young fellow who we saw many times later and who always checked on us to make sure our visit was going well.



Next, on the way to the ATM we were greeted by another guy on the street who welcomed us to Yap and asked us where we were staying. I began to realize that Yap was small enough that the people who worked in town knew at a glance that we were new arrivals. We had a nice chat with Keyonei, during which he told us he worked at Trader's Ridge Dive Shop, which was across the street, and he invited us to stop by and check out the shop any time. Being strangers in a new place it's really nice to be greeted like this, and we definitely wanted to go diving, so we stopped into that dive shop later in the day and arranged to dive with them the next two days. After that we hit the internet cafe to check our shore emails and let everyone know we'd arrived safely. Fred liked the air conditioning in there so much that he got a hotel room for the night so he could enjoy more of it, and Jeff and I headed back to the boat to with a frozen DiGiorno's pizza. This was a big treat for us, since we find island pizza to be a different than we are used to, so this frozen one was the best we'd had in quite some time.



The next day we went diving. Vince and Keyonei brought the dive boat out to God Spede to pick us up. This is nice for us because otherwise we have to load all our dive gear into the dinghy then unload it again at the dock and then load it again into the dive boat. Yap is known for it's local Manta Ray population and quite a few of Yap's visitors are divers who stop here on there way to or from Palau. We had already done a couple Manta dives in Pohnpei, one where we saw no Mantas and one where we had a great experience with various sets of them swimming formations over our heads. They are quite big, and it is pretty cool when they swim above you becuase it looks a bit like they are flying over you, but the problem with Manta dives is that you often go to "cleaning stations" to see them, and if they aren't there, then your dive can be a bit dull. Cleaning stations are usually a clump of coral in the middle of a sandy channel which have cleaning wrasses living on them. Mantas or sometimes sharks or other big fish come to the stations to get cleaned by the wrasses. It's cool when something is there getting cleaned but there's often not much else to see if nobody is home.

Manta and Reef

Our first Yap dive was to a very shallow cleaning station, but we were lucky in that there were lots of Mantas there that day. We hooked into the reef using reef hooks, so I had both hands free to operate the camera and try to get some good shots. We stayed for about 20 minutes watching the mantas swim about. It was really nice.

Manta overhead

Our second Yap dive was to a site called Vertigo, where we were told there were lots of sharks and big snapper. They weren't joking!

Lots of sharks!

I don't think I'd ever seen so many sharks at once unless the dive guides were feeding them. We found out later that they do feed them at this spot some days, but not the day we were there, although they did tell Fred to take some bread that was leftover from lunch with him to feed the snapper. Apparently snapper love banana bread - go figure!

Fred feeding snapper

The snapper were all around us the minute we got in the water. We started in about thirty feet of water near the edge of the reef and then swam to the drop off where there were a lot of sharks circling around. We just floated there and watched them swim around and around.

Black Tip Reef Shark

Some were small reef sharks, but there were lots of grey sharks as well, which are a bit bigger. I'll admit here that I mostly enjoy seeeing sharks while we are diving, they look so powerful and sleek, but it still raises my hackles a bit when there are a lot around at once. I can't help thinking that if just one bit you that the blood would have the rest of them on you in a flash. Jeff always tells me that the dive companies would be out of business quick if their customers were getting eaten by sharks, and I know it's true, but that doesn't prevent the heebie jeebies from setting in, particularly if I look back and find that one has circled around behind us. I would really prefer if they would all stay front and center where I can keep an eye on them. After watching the sharks for a bit we swam along the outside of the reef and saw some great coral and a turtle. It was a great day of diving.

Grey Shark

Turtle

Our second day of diving in Yap was also nice, but not quite as good as the first. We went outside the reef to the southern point and dove Yap caverns first. There was some really nice coral here and a lot of bumphead parrotfish, but the visibility was not so great so it was hard to appreciate the big picture. Our guide, Barnaby, made up for that by pointing out lots of "macro critters" to us along the way. ("Macro critters" is cool diver slang for the little bitty creatures that it's very easy to overlook.) We saw two leaf fish (the first I've ever seen), some micro crabs, a lionfish and a moray eel. When we got back to the surface a big black cloud was headed our way and Vince decided that we needed to get back inside the lagoon before it arrived, so we went around the west side and headed for another Manta dive spot. We were not so lucky with the Mantas that day, but we did see a couple eagle rays and Vince showed us some underwater stone money and took our picture with it.

Underwater with Stone Money

The stone money, as far as I know, is unique to Yap. It's not in use anywhere else in Micronesia. It really is stone, and it really is money, and it's still in use today. Basically it is big pieces of some kind of rock that is not found on Yap. All the stone money in Yap was brought over from Palau. Most of the stone money we saw looked just like a stone wheel in a caveman cartoon. It's round with a hole in the middle that you can put a big stick through so about eight men can carry the money around. I think there are also some bigger pieces, but we never saw any of those. Traditionally, it wasn't moved very much once it was brought over from Palau. Bigger doesn't necessarily mean it's worth more. What gives a stone it's value is the story of it's history including the tale of the journey over from Palau. Apparently, the rougher the journey, and the more people who died on it, the more the stone is worth. Stones that were gathered later, using tools and bigger ships, are not worth as much as the ones from earlier times that were carved by hand.



Most of the stone money that we saw was near the "Men's houses", which are big, rectangular roofed spaces where the men gather for important meetings or ceremonies. The more important men get the better, higher seats, and then there are lower levels for the less important guys, and a seperate space entirely for the ladies. I assume that the money originally got put in front of the house of the village that owned it, but we were told that it doesn't often get moved, even when it's traded to another village it stays put and everyone knows who owns each piece of money.



I have to admit, that my first thought on seeing this stone money was "Hello - that's not money, that's just a piece of rock!" Then later the same day I was buying some stuff in the grocery store and I looked at the fancy paper I was paying with, and I thought, hmmm, I suppose some alien could say, "Hey lady, that's not money, that's just a piece of paper". Then I remembered that our paper currency is backed up by gold, and I felt better until I realized that "hello - gold is just a piece of yellow metal!" Then I started wondering how "money" really works, and then I decided that that wasn't what I wanted to think about just then, so I decided to forget about it and just stop poo-poohing the stone money. It did also occur to me that security-wise the stone money concept is superior - it's quite difficult to move, and the stone itself isn't worth anything without it's story (although it's not clear to me why a thief couldn't just make one up).



I learned most of what I know about stone money the day we did a land tour with Vince. We drove around most of the island with him and he answered lots of our questions about Yap and it's customs. He also showed us his wife's village (he married a mainland Yapese woman) and the plot of land where one day they hope to rebuild the house her family once had there that was completely destroyed by a typhoon. Only the foundation and the betel nut trees remained. As a bonus on our tour we got to see Vince cut some of the betel nuts by tying his knife onto the end of a long branch using a leaf he cut into strips, and then raising the knife up on the branch and chopping off a clump of betel nuts from the top of the tall skinny palms they grow on. Cool.



The next day we went out fishing and spearfishing with Keyonei and Barnaby. We took our spear gun out too and Fred got some pointers from Keyonei who is an amazing spearfisherman. Apparently spearfishing is easy if you are able to free dive to about 40 feet and stay down there for a good long time. This is apparently not a problem for Keyonei, who comes from one of Yap's outer atolls where fishing and spearfishing are the daily activities for the boys and men. The ladies take care of the farming and cooking. We were told that almost all the dive guides on Yap proper were originally from the outer islands, where free diving is a way of life. Keyonei was able to fill a cooler full of fish pretty easily, and although we didn't have any luck spearfishing, we did catch a mahi mahi while trolling along the outer reef on our way to the spearfishing spot. We were pretty excited since this is the first mahi mahi we have caught on this entire trip, but unfortunately I managed to lose the picture of it and all the other Yap onland pictures we took while we were there. Bummer. We did, however, enjoy a magnificent fish dinner that night!



We also had a bit of excitement after the spearfishing when Keyonei told us that he didn't want to go all the way back to the pass to get back into the lagoon, so instead we would go over a low part in the reef, which would only work if we rode in over the reef on the right size wave. Apparently there is no pass into the lagoon around the island where Keyonei is from, so they take small boats over their reef frequently and it's just a matter of counting the waves correctly - which all sounded nice and reassuring until we got real close to the reef and he put his in shoes on "just in case". Then he told us to look around the boat and make sure everything was secure because there was a small chance we could capsize. Well, I'm not sure what Keyonei's definition of "secure" is, but as far as I could tell nothing in the boat was secure. We had fins and masks and snorkels and spearguns laying everywhere. The fish was all in the cooler, but the cooler itself was in no way secure. In fact, I'm not sure how we could have made anything secure, it was a small, open boat without compartments to put things in. I suppose we could have at least put our snorkel gear back in it's bag (the bag with the broken zipper) but although Keyonei said to make things secure, I couldn't see how, and he and Barnaby didn't seem to be securing anything, so I just grabbed the new camera and put it's strap around my wrist and decided to hope for the best. We made a couple big circles in silence - I was afraid to say anything since I didn't want to interupt Keyonei's concentration. Barnaby was in the bow and I kept my eye on him. He didn't look nervous, but he did look intent. Then, we finally caught a wave and zoomed over the reef with no mishaps and everyone relaxed and started joking again, so I assumed we were safe.



We thought we would be leaving the next day, but the weather simply did not cooperate, so we stayed a few more days and got to go to Yap Days, which is a yearly celebration of traditional Yap culture that includes dancing, and stone money carrying contests among other things. Most people there were in traditional garb which includes colorful skirts for the ladies and loin cloths for the men. Some of the loin cloths were topped with some unique straw looking decorations that are made from hibiscus bark. It was all very interesting to see, although unfortunately they ran out of programs before we got there, so we didn't really understand what any of the songs were about.



One of the my favorite things about Yap, were the very interesting people we met there. For instance, We met Chief Munno one day as we were returning to the boat after Yap Days. He was walking down the street wearing only a blue loincloth and carrying the tradtional men's woven straw bag. He hailed us from across the street, and when we crossed he introduced himself and asked where we were from, and if we had been enjoying our stay in Yap. (It seemed like the majority of people we talked to really wanted to know if were having a nice visit.) I assumed, based on his attire, that he had been to Yap days, but as we chatted we learned he was the chief of one of the outer islands who was on the main island to attend a Chief's conference. The goverment of Yap has four main branches, the same three we have in the US plus a group consisting of the chiefs which includes the chiefs of the outer islands along with those from Yap proper. Anyway, Chief Munno was very interested to learn that we were from Idaho. Seems he had gone to college in Eastern Oregon and had fond memories of a road trip to Boise (to buy some Coors beer!) Chief Munno went on to tell us that he is only a few credits away from a Masters degree, but he missed home to much, so he came back before finishing. He was a fascinating fellow, and we exchanged email addresses with him, but he also requested our postal address because when he is back home on his island he does not have access to "those machines". Given that the Yap government is clearly very vested in the country's infrastructure, I assume this is by design. I assume that they could have internet on the outer islands but that they sometimes choose not to, because I know that one of Yap's stated goals is to try to keep traditional living alive, while also attempting to make themselves economically viable by developing their tourist industry. It seems like a very tough line to walk, but I hope they can do it, because Yap is definitely a very unique place.



Another day, in the laundromat I met two other interesting characters. The first was a very nice 75 year old lady who very kindly offered to share her lunch with me. She has six grown children, and many of them went to college in the US, and a few of them still live there. She's been to visit so many times that she is bored with their hometowns and on her last visit she asked them to take her to Las Vegas where she won either $900 playing the slot machines. The other character was a gentleman who was dressed in a loincloth and carrying a woven straw bag full of betel nuts. He was waiting in the laundromat for a ride back to his village, where he owned a small store. He asked me about the book I was reading, and wheter we read a lot on the sailboat, and told me he had just finished reading the Bill Clinton's autobiography. Somehow this was just not what I expected him to say, but it was great chatting with him.



People here in Palau keep asking us what there is to do in Yap, and my advice is to just wander around town and chat with the very friendly people there. It really is a unique, and very lovely experience.

Truk Lagoon (Chuuk), Federated States of Micronesia

Truk Lagoon islands and dive boat

Truk Lagoon is the first place we've been to that we were warned repeatedly about before arriving, but we are happy to report that we had no unpleasant incidents during our stay there. We were very careful while we were there, especially since we continued to be warned by locals that everything on deck should be locked up, and we purposely anchored in only one location, which was off of the lovely and welcoming Blue Lagoon Resort, and we limited our overall stay and severely limited our time in the main town, and although it's a shame that we felt that all of this was necessary, I am glad to say that we had nothing but pleasant experiences during our stay in Truk.




We arrived to the main town dock pretty late in the afternoon our first day here after motoring twelve miles inside the reef. The lagoon here is huge. It's quite different from Pohnpei, which was basically one large mountainous island with a nearby fringing reef. In Truk their are many medium to small islands which are all surrounded by a reef which is ten to fifteen miles away from the central islands. The town of Weno is where we had to go to check into the country, and is also where we had been told that fights often break out in the streets between local youths.



We reached the main town dock at about 2:30 PM. This dock is really designed for much bigger ships with huge bollards spaced quite a ways apart. We put our bow line around one, but the next one back was quite a ways away, so Jeff volunteered to stand on the dock and hold the stern line. Unfortunately for him our check in process was delayed while we were waiting for one of the agents to show up, so he wound up holding the sailboat onto the dock for about two hours while many of the local skiffs went flying by creating totally unneccessary wakes to push us around. It was a bit annoying, but eventually we got our paperwork in order and still had enough daylight to head south to what we had been told was a much safer anchorage off of the Blue Lagoon Resort. We got the anchor down and got the dinghy inflated in record time and went ashore to arrange our diving for the next day. Then we headed back to the boat to finish our post-passage necessary chores and make ourselves some dinner and hit our bunks for that first blissful night of uninterrupted sleep.



The next day was the first of four days of fantastic wreck diving. We'd heard that Truk is in a class by itself when it comes to wreck diving and I think we are all now believers. We went ashore a few minutes before what we thought was 9 AM, the time we were meant to meet our guide on the dock. We waited and waited and made a few jokes about island time and waited some more, and Jeff finally walked up to the dive shop to make sure they knew we were there. In the meantime a nice fellow came over and began chatting with Fred and I. He asked if we were going diving and mentioned how early we were. Once again we had crossed into a new time zone during the passage without realizing it and we were an hour early. Sheesh!



A few minutes later, Estos and Mack brought the boat around and we loaded up our gear (after apologizing for rushing them!) and met a father and son from Australia who dove with us for two days, and headed out over some very calm water between some very beautiful islands to our first Truk wreck.



The Fujikawa Maru was a 433 ft Japanese aircraft carrier. We swam along the outside for a bit and admired the amazing hard and soft corals which almost completely cover the outside of the boat. It makes the boat itself like a reef and makes swimming around all the masts and the towers that stick up from the deck really interesting. Just the outside would have been an amazing dive, but Estos led us inside to a room with lots of pipes and some electrical circuits still showing. We swam around this for a bit then went swimming through to the holds. There were six holds on this boat all with something cool to see, but my favorites were the ones with containing the Japenese Zeros. It was unbelievably cool to be swimming around inside a ship under the water and see these planes inside. One of the holds had about six of them and they were scattered around and kind of lying on top of each other. It was amazing how tiny these planes were. I could not imagine getting in something that size and going to shoot at other planes and ships. Incredible. The holds also contained many fuel drums, lots of saki bottles, some gas masks and some shoes.

A few of the MANY saki bottles we saw while diving

Our second wreck the first day was the Heian Maru, a 510 ft submarine tender with more amazing coral outside and a really cool very long horizontal swim through with periscope repair pieces laying in the hallway.



I was completely sold on Truk wreck diving after these two dives. We all agreed that we could easily do mulitple additional dives on these two wrecks before their charms would begin to pale.



The second day we went first to the Shinokoku Maru, a 500 ft naval tanker, whose superstructure was covered with gorgeous coral. Even the bow gun was covered, so much so that it took me a moment to understand what I was seeing. We also swam inside and saw an operating table and a side room with a tiled tub.

Jeff amongst Shinokuku superstructure

This was also the first dive that we took our amazing new underwater camera on. This camera was a Christmas/Birthday/Easter/Valentines/St Patricks Day/Thanksgiving present from Judy and Merv, and we were super excited to try it out! We are also super excited to be able to share our underwater experiences on the blog thanks to the photos from the new camera. Jeff and Fred were a bit amused at the fact that I read every word of the instructions beforehand and at my initial nervousness about damaging the camera, since Jeff graciously allowed me to have the first go with it. It took a bit of getting used to at first (I am definitely NOT a "gear girl" and there is already a lot going on when you're wreck diving) but then I was very pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was to take some outside snaps. We didn't attempt any inside photos at this point, because it's pretty dark inside the wrecks and some of the spaces are pretty small and there are sometimes sharp pieces of metal about, so you need to pay attention to where you are, but we made up for it once we were outside the wrecks back in the better light. We took a gazillion photos and you can be assured that from now on we'll be posting pics of all our dives.

Coral on the Kensho

Our second dive this day was the Yamigiri Maru. It had a big torpedo hole in side which we swam into, and more amazing coral on the outside, and also a human skull which appeared to be fused into the wall of the engine room. This was the only sign of human remains that we saw while diving although many of the wrecks have them. Our dive guide told us before the dive that it was there and gave us the option of seeing it or not. We voted to see it, and to me it seemed a good reminder that we were actually diving on ships that were sunk full of men during a war. It's easy to lose track of that while gawking at the amazing underwater sights.

coral on the Yamagiri

The next day our first dive was on the Nippo Maru, a 351 ft cargo ship which had a one man tank sitting on one of it's decks. Again, I was surprised at how small the tank was - tiny! I can't imagine getting into something like that by yourself and driving around these islands with people shooting at you. Crazy! There were also som artillery guns on wheels deck on the deck. For some reason (maybe because of the wheels?) these looked to me more like something from the Civil War than from WWII. There were also a lot of big, square water tanks in one of the holds and tons of saki bottles.



There were actually tons and tons of saki bottles in every wreck we saw. So many that Jeff now has a theory that Saki consumption may be a major factor in why the Japanese lost the war! It may sound silly reading this at home, but if you come take a look at these wrecks I guarantee you'll think he's on to something!



Our second dive that day was the Kensho Maru, a 381 ft cargo ship. In this ship Estos took us through some really amazing swim throughs. We went up and down some very skinny staircases, and since this boat is sitting right side up it felt like you were walking around in it. We went to the engine room where there were plenty of levers still intact. There was also some really nice coral on the bow gun outside.

Kensho coral encrusted bow gun

Our first dive on our fourth and last day of diving was on the San Francisco Maru. This was our deepest dive in Truk with a max depth of 165 feet. We dropped down near the bow of the boat which is the shallowest part of this wreck, but still deeper than the deepest parts of the other dives we had done. There was very little coral here, compared to the other dives we had done (I think because it is so much deeper, but didn't get that confirmed by Estos), so we got a really good look at the bow gun and the track that it spins on. Next we swam over to see the two one-man tanks that are on the starboard deck. One tank was partly on top of the other - it sort of looked like they had collided and one tank went up over the other, I imagine this happened either when the ship was being bombed or when it hit the bottom. There were some china cups and plates from the wreck displayed near the tanks also. There was another tank that we saw on the port side of the boat. Between these there were some deeper, open holds where we could see the skeletons of trucks including the chassis, steering wheel, and seat frames. All of this was in front of the bridge and when we reached that we turned around and began ascending gradually back towards the bow and the mooring line to the dive boat. This had all taken only about 15 minutes, but we needed to head back up while we still had plenty of air for the decompression stops diving at this depth would require. There wasn't much to look at on the way up, and we had to spend a good bit of time there, which is the problem with deep dives. I'm glad that most of our dives weren't this deep, but I really enjoyed this one all the same. Seeing the tanks sitting there on the decks was really neat, and seeing this one boat with so much less coral growth than the others was interesting also.

Betty Bomber engine

After a fairly long surface interval, which we spent back at the resort itself, we went back out for our final Truk dive at the "Betty Bomber", a Japanese plane which came down just a little short of a runway that had been built by the Japanese on one of the flatter islands. This plane is in fairly shallow water. It's engine of the plane is about a hundred feet away and we swam over to check that out first, then back to the body of the plane itself.





Fred coming out of the Betty Bomber



The nose was sheared off of the the body, so you could look right inside from the front. There were a gazillion little fish inside, and when I swam in they just moved over a bit to let me through. It felt a little like swimming inside an aquarium. I enjoyed it so much I went through a couple times going each way. Scattered about on the ground outside the plane were some radio parts, oxygen bottles, the ever prolific saki bottles, and a gun that looked more like a hunk of rusty metal than anything else.



Fred with the gun from the Betty Bomber



We had originally planned on four days of diving while in Truk, but we were having so much fun that we would have added a few more days, especially since the weather did not allow us to leave right away anyway, but unfortunately Fred and Jeff both had their ear infections recur, and I managed to really smash my foot on a piece of deck hardware, so we sat around a played hospital boat for the next day or two before checking out on Monday. The guys did make one short provisioning run into town, and said that it was every bit as bad as it was reported to be. I can't tell you how many people in Pohnpei described it as "a shithole". Multiple people used that exact phrase, and not all were the sort of people you'd expect that kind of language from. The boys agreed, however we also all agree that the Blue Lagoon Resort is quite nice. They have lots of security and very friendly staff in general, so if you want to dive in Truk, our recommendation is do it, but definitely stay at the Blue Lagoon.



We had to go back to the town dock again to check out of the country, then we headed north and got through the pass out of the reef a few hours later to begin our 800 mile sail to Yap.