Nigel Marsh recently revisited Palau after first diving the island nation in 1990 and found this amazing dive destination was just as good as his first visit.
Palau was one of the first overseas dive destinations I was lucky enough to visit way back in 1990. At the time it was a little-known destination for Aussie divers. I didn’t know what to expect and was amazed by the incredible diving I got to experience – beautiful coral walls, immense sea caves, WWII shipwrecks and an abundance of sharks and fishes. It was such an enjoyable trip that I was always reluctant to return to Palau in case it had degraded over the years since. Then a special invitation from Diveplanit to spend a week in Palau landed in my lap and I knew I couldn’t pass it up. It was time to revisit this island paradise and see if the diving was as good as I remembered.
The Republic of Palau is a small island nation in Micronesia, located north of Papua New Guinea and east of the Philippines. It is the fourth smallest country in the world, made up of 340 islands and home to some of the richest coral reefs on the planet. Though close to Australia, flights to Palau have always been tricky via several adjacent countries. However, recently Qantas launched a weekly direct flight from Brisbane that only takes five and a half hours, making Palau very accessible.
While you can stay in a motel and do day trip diving in Palau, the best way to experience a wide variety of dive sites is via a liveaboard boat, which is what I have done on both visits. On this recent trip, Diveplanit booked our group on the luxurious Ocean Hunter III. This was an upgrade from my previous visit, with this spacious vessel accommodating 16 guests in eight very comfortable ensuite cabins. Ocean Hunter III is a wonderfully configured liveaboard with a large camera setup area, a sundeck with two spas and a well laid-out lounge and dining area. The meals were a treat that never left you wanting more, and the crew were excellent, looking after our every need on the boat and underwater.
Over the 34 years since my last visit to Palau a great deal had changed. Palau had become an independent nation in 1994, it had also protected most of its reefs, as well as its fishes and turtles. And in 2009 the nation had declared its waters the world’s first shark sanctuary. I was super keen to re-explore Palau’s reefs, wrecks and caves.
THE REEFS
The fringing reef around Palau forms coral gardens, walls and channels into the sheltered lagoon, and all offer fabulous diving. On my most recent trip I revisited some familiar sites and also got to dive quite a few new sites that really impressed.
Palau’s most famous dive site is Blue Corner. A current swept reef plateau and wall, this is the site where reef hooks were invented so you could hook-in and watch the action. This was my favourite dive site back in 1990 as the sharks and schools of pelagic fish were remarkable. And it was good to see it had lost none of its charm, fish or sharks.
While the current was not as strong as my last visit, due to the new moon, we still encountered over a dozen grey reef sharks and dense schools of paddletail snapper, trevally, rainbow runners and barracuda. However, a big highlight for me were the reef fishes, including giant Maori wrasse, bumphead parrotfish, flowery gropers and rare fish like zebra barred dartfish and blue blanquillo.
We also did quite a few drift dives along reef walls at Siaes Corner, New Dropoff, Turtle Wall, Ngemelis Wall, Turtle Cove and Big Dropoff. All these walls drop to over 50m and are covered in the most beautiful corals – gorgonians, sea whips, soft corals and whip corals. Numerous reef sharks patrolled these walls, and we encountered schools of trevally, snappers, fusiliers, barracuda and parrotfish. Turtles and colourful reef fish were also common along all these walls. I had dived several of these walls on my first visit and I can easily say they are still impressive.
We also dived some pretty and healthy coral gardens at Fairyland and Ngerchong Coral Gardens, but the reef channel drift dives were more of a highlight. At Ulong Channel it was lots of sharks and coral trouts, while at German Channel we encountered a massive school of feeding fish that almost blocked out the sun and watched four feeding reef manta rays. The German Channel dive was incredible and much better than it was in 1990.
My favourite reef dive on this trip was Ulong Sand Bar, as we witness groups of bumphead parrotfish spawning in the early morning. The reef itself is pretty, but seeing thousands of bumphead parrotfish schooling in midwater and then charging towards the surface in small groups to realise eggs and sperm was a sight to behold.
THE CAVES
If the reefs weren’t exciting enough in Palau, many have large caves cutting into them that are stunning to explore. Back in 1990 I only dived two of these caves, including the famous Chandelier Cave which has stalactites. On this recent trip we didn’t dive Chandelier Cave, but made up for this by exploring Siaes Tunnel, Blue Holes and Virgin Blue Hole.
Each of these massive caves were enchanting, and I could have spent over an hour in each. While they have some pretty corals in them, what made them especially fascinating for me was the rare fish that could be seen. I was very impressed to find harlequin hinds, black and white butterflyfish and several rare Cocos-Keeling angelfish. Naturally these caves had many other inhabitants, including nudibranchs, flatworms, shrimps, squirrelfish and morays.
THE WAR WRECKS
When I first visited Palau in 1990, I knew there were numerous Japanese ship and plane wrecks from World War II. However, I was surprised to discover that the crew of the liveaboard had rarely dived any of them, as nearly all their guests only wanted to dive the reefs. We remedied this, diving four shipwrecks to the great enjoyment of the crew. On my most recent trip I got to revisit two of those ships and also explore a plane wreck.
All the wrecks are located in the lagoon, so don’t always have the best visibility, but we still enjoyed 12m viz, unlike the 30m to 40m viz we had on the reefs. The Iro, a 143m long fleet oil tanker was just as good as I remembered it. This is one of the most popular Palau wrecks, with plenty to see like the king posts, winches and massive bow gun. This wreck is covered in corals and fishes and one dive was not enough to see all its features.
The Chuyo Maru, a 87m long tanker, was also fun to reexplore. Both ships are still in remarkable condition after 80 years on the seafloor and comparing them to the slide images I took 34 years ago, they hadn’t changed a great deal. Also impressive was the Jake Sea Plane, which rests in 17m and is mostly intact.
My revisit to Palau was not just a great trip down memory lane, but reinforced and reminded my why Palau is still one of the greatest dive destinations on the planet!
