Palau
I loved Palau !
The shark and Manta encounters were constant and we also did the jellyfish lake, which was an awesome experience that should not be missed if you are there.
Hooking into the reefs at Ulong Chanell and watching the sharks swim by grabbing the tangs for lunch was very exhilarating.
After hanging there and watching, the drift dive up the channel was an experience I will not forget.
This was a wide angle photographers dream trip with Manta's and sharks regularly within feet of me.
We saw Manta's every time we went to German channel and it quickly became our favorite site which we requested almost every day.
Chandelier cave was cool, but vis was limited and it was an overhead environment with pockets that you could pop up into .
It was important to keep sight of the guide and his light as you went through.
Blue holes/Blue corner has a cavern with sunlight streaming through the many holes in the reef and fantastic photo ops of divers with sunlight beams were available. After dropping through the cavern, we drifted over the Blue corner wall to the Ulong Chanell site and hooked in for the remaining bottom time , watching sharks.
Visibility was an average of 75-100 ft and I was very comfortable in the 80-85º water wearing a full 3mm wetsuit .
Some people wore less, but I don't like being cold after dive 2 or 3.
The coral was not real healthy, probably due to currents, but this was all about the big animals.
The boats seemed to know where we were and even if a few of us broke from the group (who? me??) they were in touch with all boats in the area and quickly found their divers.
We had an hour ride every morning to get from the resort to the dive sites and it was raining frequently.
This made a cold ride and I highly recommend bringing your rain slicker !
There were 3 dives only because we were diving off a land based operator, but they did offer night dives .
I would have preferred doing a live-aboard, and doing 5 dives a day, when I go back I will be on one !
