28th May 2016 - diving Blue Corner and Blue Holes (Palau)

Saturday 28^th May 2016

Beautiful Palau

Today we are totally exhausted…I have come into the yacht club to battle with the internet; Pete is on the boat preparing to replace the frayed halyard.  When it gets cooler I will have to hoick him up the mast again…He is by now, I hope, having a soothing beer and encouraging his sourdough to rise.

Our kindly sturdy captain

Exhausted why?  Two big dives yesterday!  Followed  by an exam!

We went with a small but cheery group from the USA, Brazil, Australia. Our dive masters were Rikke (Denmark) and Alta (South Africa.)

Our speedy little boat - Jason (USA), Alta (South Africa), Rikke (Denmark)

The boat sped along, past beautiful little islands and within an hour we were ready to leap into the water and go cautiously down the mooring line to explore Blue Corner.  There is sometimes a very strong current here, so we were issued with hooks, to stop ourselves from being swept away.  As it turned out, the current was gentle so we just drifted along the wall in a big cloud of fish, interspersed with many cruising sharks.  They weren’t in the least interested in us, but we were very interested to find one having a nice rest on the sandy bottom.  I didn’t have my GoPro with me on the first dive but everyone else went right up and took photos as it snoozed away, rocking in the current.

The second dive, Blue Holes, was only a few hundred metres away.  Four dark blue shapes near the surface of the water… When we jumped in we dived right down into glorious big caverns, all interlinked.  Just magnificent!

Blue Hole!

On the way back to the boat we found a very nice turtle, happy to be filmed.

Pete being helped with his descent by Rikke

We got back to Sam’s Tours (yacht club) at 3.30 and were happy to rinse out our gear, get a drink, have a chat… But no!  Pete, Jason and I had to do an exam because we had used nitrox tanks and we had to do a course qualifying us to use enriched air.  The others had already done it, so we could hear their merry laughter in the bar…

Our turtlefriend

The course involved an informative videofilm, a booklet, and a series of tests…

All three of us passed. (Of course; Alta had to spoon feed us but she was very insistent that we knew what we were learning.)  We were released from the classroom at five and we are still recovering…

A rainstorm on the horizon

But…no complaints; it was a fabulous day.