West Plaza Desekel Koror

... similar saltwater lakes in the islands and contains over ten million jellyfish that have descended and evolved from a common ancestor, the spotted jellyfish. Jellyfish Lake is completely isolated, but in the distant past, it had an outlet to the ocean. The outlet was closed off and the high jellyfish population was isolated and started to feed on quickly-reproducing algae. Contrary to popular belief, the jellyfish of Jellyfish Lake do have small stinging cells, or nematocysts. However ...

... 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 ...

In case you are planning to come to Palau: a couple of websites. Yesterday, we had a day off. Did not do much. We looked for an internet café, mentioned in the Lonely Planet. As often before: Lonely Planet is outdated. We do find a hotel with wireless: http://www.palasia-hotel.com/en/hotelIn troduction/hotelIntroduction.asp Veeeeery weird: full of Japanese men ...

... we lost our camera. This time for good. It is at the bottom of the sea. What started off as a nice day, turns bad. Sun is shining in the morning, not anymore when we reach our dive site: it is raining cats and dogs. Sea is rough. I roll in and am meeeeters from the boat in seconds. Alain shouts: grab the line. Which line? I cannot see anything. Rain is piercing my face and my eyes. I float further and further away from the boat. 'The line' Alain ...

Oops, the local Beata screwed up again: pick up is not at 7h30 but at 8h. 5 minutes drive later, we arrive at our dive shop: Fish 'n Fins: it is the best oiled dive shop I have ever seen. They sell about everything a diver might want, all with the name of their shop printed on. Elise gives us our gear and the Tomcat carries it to the boat. Two guys from Guam join us. Our dive master is Alain, of Philippine origin. We are going to the Blue Corner: the number 2 in the world ...

... As you can see the water here is a stunning crystal blue, and there are pristine white sandy beaches. I got to go kayaking one day. That day we also visited an island the locals call "Yahoo Island." Apparently a commercial for Yahoo was filmed here. Michelle is a bit out of the loop so she had never heard of it, maybe my ...

... big Napoleon Raz was following us around for an entire dive. Apparently he is used to being fed by divers so if you just had a small stone in your hand and held it out he would come over and see if it was something he could eat. In between dives we would go to nearby islands to explore or goof around. On the way back from diving we stopped at another island which had a lake in the middle called jellyfish lake ...

He Said: If it wasn't for a season of the TV show "Survivor" being filmed here a few years ago, I imagine most probably would have never heard of the nation of Palau. The fact that the entire nation only has 20,000 inhabitants (that is less than half the size of our home of Hoboken, New Jersey!) and is just a few small dots in the Pacific doesn't put it in too high of a profile on the nightly news or in school geography classes ...

Hello one last time from Palau. We are leaving tonight, well, tomorrow morning at 1:45am for Truk to dive the WWII wrecks. Unfortunately, we may be leaving civilization and this might be the last time you hear from us for a while or doubtful we will be able to download pictures. We will leave you with more pictures... Only two more weeks - we are quite sad! Not surprising, it is going by a little too fast.