PalauTrip Report March 05

[Travelnsj]

This was my fifth trip to Palau, my fourth with Sams and my third Diving with Keith Santillano. In the three years diving with Keith he has taken half the weight off my weight belt a doubled my bottom time.

My first day, water like glass and temp 82 degrees. The first dive was the Blue Holes. Simply a Beautiful dive. Looking up at divers descending through the Blue Holes is incredible. We descend down to the Disco Clam and then drift down the wall. You will see Hard and Soft corals, schools of Black Snapper, Yellowbacks, Trevally, Butterflyfish and so on. Then the surface interval. Now where? Why not the Blue Corner? This was probably the 20th time I have dove the Blue Corner. Almost every time seems to be the best. This day the current was ripping at about 3 knots with 5-knot surges. You hook up to the Reef and watch the underwater Zoo! Barracuda, Eagle rays, Jacks, White tips, Dog Tooth Tuna etc….This day about 50 to 70 Grey Reef Sharks large and small. The females were cut and scratched…….mating season……..looks a little rough. Then off the Corner and into the flats. Now you encounter the Triggerfish, which are hanging around their nests, and they do not want you around. One bumped the lens of my camera, and then I felt a tug on my fin. Just a Triggerfish biting and it would not budge…..so I decided to leave them alone. Actually I was running out of Air.

This type of Action or beauty typified the majority of my dives. Whether on not it was the German Channel, Peleliu, Big Drop Off, Turtle Cove etc. The diving was simply the best!

What a trip! :dazzler1:

 

[kevink]

Glad to see you had a good time with Keith. He is the guru of bouyancy, and king of the 60 minute plus group drift dive.

Who's boat is he using now? Does he still dive with a magnifying glass to find the tiny creatures?

 

[Travelnsj]

Glad to see you had a good time with Keith. He is the guru of bouyancy, and king of the 60 minute plus group drift dive.

Who's boat is he using now? Does he still dive with a magnifying glass to find the tiny creatures?

That's funny...You know Keith! How does he find those Frog Fish and all the other tiny things?

He has now moved Dive Palau in with Sams and is the Head DiveMaster. Great Guy and a good friend.

 

[Tim Ingersoll]

321 days and counting. I cannot wait. Trip reports like yours just make the waiting all that much harder.

 

[lee3]

82 degrees, can't wait. my wife and i are going this thursday. question- any reason one needs to wear a wetsuit in palau? i'm was planing on just wearing trunks and a BC since that is what i did in maui a few months ago on every dive and water temps were a good 5 degrees cooler than your report. oddly enough, my wife who suffers from raynaud's will be wearing a 7mil in palau (which sounds unbearable to me).

 

[tres amigo]

Great trip report! I can't wait to get there next year. It sounds like the ultimate destination. Thanks for taking the time to post your report.

 

[Travelnsj]

82 degrees, can't wait. my wife and i are going this thursday. question- any reason one needs to wear a wetsuit in palau? i'm was planing on just wearing trunks and a BC since that is what i did in maui a few months ago on every dive and water temps were a good 5 degrees cooler than your report. oddly enough, my wife who suffers from raynaud's will be wearing a 7mil in palau (which sounds unbearable to me).

You should be fine...except for those coral stings!

 

[kevink]

That's funny...You know Keith! How does he find those Frog Fish and all the other tiny things?

He has now moved Dive Palau in with Sams and is the Head DiveMaster. Great Guy and a good friend.

I lived in Palau for a year in 2000 - 2001. Did a lot of diving with Keith. I don't know how he finds half the stuff he comes up with. He has been there 15 years, so he really knows how to find stuff.

He never found me a frogfish, but plenty of leaf scorpionfish, which still look like underwater debris to me. The stonefish are also a hell of a lot harder to find on that end of the world.

The tiny nudibranchs with the magnifying glass have to take the cake though.


On the question of wetsuits - - at least wear a diveskin or 1/2 mil fullsuit. Given the currents and the possibility to get pushed into something underwater I always like the protection of something around me.

7mm suits are not unheard of there either. As people get acclimated (even to 82 degree water) it become harder to squeeze out hour long dives without getting a chill.