Penthouse Hotel Koror

... spread north to south over 100 miles form the atoll of Kayangel to the island of Angaur plus five tiny islands, known as the southwest islands. Palau's profuse, unspoiled reefs offer a wealth of marine life, coral formations and wrecks. Dives begin in knee deep water and plunge straight down to depths of 1000 feet and more. Blue holes, huge caverns and an immense variety of rare and exotic marine species are easily accessible in clear water with visibility exceeding 200 feet. Vast ...

... And John Lennon glasses. He says hi to me. American. We bump into each other again afterwards and he asks: 'How was your dive today, Marina?'  He introduces himself as the mayor of the city! Straaaaaange.   Then it is time to leave. I do like the Fish 'n Fins dive shop. But it is very very commercial. You pay a lot of money for everything. On top of the hotel and diving, we paid more than 600$. For what? Well: the permits (not their fault), extras ...

... back home. Hubby is still asleep, so I need to take action. We skip diving today and go for a ... helicopter ride! Poor Tomcat has to dismantle all equipment on board. Bob was so nice to offer us his camera, if we wanted to go on the helicopter ride. Unfortunately, there is often a difference between what people say and what they do. Not with Bob. He gives us his expensive Nikon and goes diving. We go back home, I call the helicopter company and ...

... It can be very dangerous. Good start... . It IS very nice. And the current behaves. Why do we have pitures? Because of our diving buddy: Bob. He is from New York and lives in Indonesia. Richard is filming during the dive and we actually end up buying the video, He did a great job! Dinner at the corner of our street: dodgy Chinese. See you tomorrow at the diving.

... It does not appear on the surface either. We were diving a wall, 250 meter down. My Hubby is great as usual. He is sad because my new year's present is gone. But goes: ah well, ... . Does not get angry, nervous or blames me. We quietly sit out our surface interval and go for our second dive. It is weird without camera. Bob, our only dive mate, offers his camera if we want to do a land tour. Big expensive Nikon! Tomorrow, we have a dive break. No plans.

... I cannot believe it. My Hubby gears up our equipment. We sail by the 'islands'. They are really more like atolls. Inhabited, overgrown by trees and the bottom is eaten away by the corrosion of the water. By low tide, a boat can fit under there. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life! Prettier then Pang nga, James Bond island in Thailand. The speed boat takes almost an hour. And: the Blue Corner deserves its place in the top 100. Giant groupers ...

... meet the water. This is for 3 reasons. First the acidity of the rain eats away at the stone as it travels down the roots of the plants. Also the waves are constantly pounding into the rock. Lastly these little critters eat bugs out of the small holes in the rock. Their tongues are so sharp that they actually cut away at the ...

... stays suspended in the water. It is also the kind of sand that is used at spas to treat your skin so I had my own free spa treatment here! One jump in the water and I was instantly cleaned off! I spent a day driving around the main island here called Babeldaob seeing the sights. I did a hike to a waterfall and on the way saw these abandoned wartime Japanese railroad tracks. The waterfall is called Ngardmau ...

... most beautiful places I've seen! Since we only had one day here, we spent it visiting the country's premier attraction, the Rock Islands. These are a series of over two hundred small, uninhabited limestone islands grouped just south of the main islands of Palau. They are heavily vegetated and look much like floating broccoli crowns. The pollution-free sky, green of the vegetation, and surrounding pristine coral reefs, give your ...

... rainy and the sea was rough outside of the protection of the islands (Palau is made up of a lot of little islands). Anyway, the weather limited our diving so that's when I was doing the wreck diving and some of the channel dives. Ironically, the most chaotic dive I had in Palau was during that time. I didn't know what was happening when we were underwater but I definitely knew it was not good. After cutting the dive short and forcing the group ...