Chris' Dive Experiences: "Blue Corner", Palau, Micronesia (Part 2)

As we approached the dive site, "Blue Corner", our divemaster, Steve, jumped into the water to check the current. I found out he did this in order to check the direction of the current so that we could start our dive along the wall at the right spot and easily drift to the corner of the reef.

After a thorough dive site briefing which included a quick lesson on how to use our reef hooks, we back-rolled off the boat and descended onto a nice wall. As we drifted along this wall, enjoying visibility that was around 100 feet, we saw lobster, turtles, large schools of fish, colorful sponges and corals.

Photo Courtesy of Rod Tuttle

As the dive time lengthened the current picked up, pushing us along. Steve signaled that "Blue Corner" was just ahead and we should prepare to use our reef hooks. As I neared the point, the current was ripping, making it easy for me to ascended to the top of the reef. There I turned to face the edge of the wall, quickly securing my hook into the reef, I then inflated my BCD. Hooked in with my BCD inflated allowed me to stay in one spot while I floated in the water above the reef. Without a reef hook, it would have been impossible to stay in one spot because the current was so strong.

Now what makes this one of the top 10 dive sites in the world is the view. Imagine you are floating above a cliff and looking out and down on hawks flying below you and other animals moving around on the ground. Now place yourself underwater. As I looked out into the water column, there were huge schools of barracuda and trevally moving with the current. The next thing I saw was my first shark - a big grey reef shark, and then another and another. The water was just teeming with life moving by us. Everywhere you looked, underwater life was passing right by us as we floated and watched.

Photo Courtesy of Liz Tuttle

Camera strobe lights were firing every few seconds, as divers filled their memory cards with wide angle shots overflowing with life. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something  coming near me. I turned and saw the friendly, HUGE, resident napoleon wrasse that Steve had mentioned in our briefing. He was very curious. He came right up to me and checked me out. I swear he was almost as big as I was.

Too soon Steve our dive master signaled to unhook. We had been at the site for 30 minutes and it was time to go. We unhooked and were pushed by the current away from the edge of the point and into shallower water for our safety stop. Even as we drifted up and away from this top dive site we saw tons and tons of life everywhere we looked.

Back on the boat, divers were hooting and hollering and giving high fives as our boat cruised to our lunch and surface interval destination. The boat neared a couple of the rock islands and turned into a little cove where we saw a picture perfect little sandy beach. As we sat eating our lunch, we talked at length about the fantastic dive we just completed, all the while being the only people enjoying this perfect little island.

This is diving in Palau!