This day was promising to be wonderful: Fish'n'Fins staff Jonathan and Loreen picked us up in the morning, after two nice nights on Carp Island. Bye Carp - I'll be back...
Blue Holes
25 meters and 70 minutes, came up with 500 psi (700 psi = 50 bar). Back to Nitrox, yippee! I had small headaches after every air dive. This time I was first down the rope to 8 meters, spent some time taking photos and waiting for the people to come down. Luckily looked up after 10 minutes as I saw everybody disappearing over the reef edge near the surface! Well, just followed them.
Blue Holes is very interesting dive: Entrance to the cave from the top of a reef through a hole. The bottom of the actual cave is in about 20-22 meters. When you look up, you can see one big and one smaller hole, very blue in colour. The cave itself was not so special, rubble in the bottom, most exciting part of it is the temple of doom: A smaller, deeper cave with turtle skeletons, but we did not go there. The wall dive after exiting was very nice indeed! Lots of different sweetlips, sharks patrolling, bumpheads. In about 10-12 meters a nice plateau with turtles and lots of different reef fish.
Video: Patagroup in Blue Hole, Palau
Blue Corner - again!
My favourite divesite, this time with different current and from another angle. 20 meters and 55 minutes.
We followed the wall just under the lip because of a very strong current, that in Jonathans words could have swept us to the Philippines if we got too high... In blue water for a while accompanied with sharks and trevallies.
Then we quickly rose to the plateau at 12 meters and hooked ourselves in a very strong current! The regu in my mouth was wobbling and so was the mask... I felt like a balloon on a string, with the current pulling me this way and that... But we got a nice show again, in front row seats! Exhilarating!
Video: Huge marbled groupers in Blue Corner, Palau
Helmet Wreck
26 meters, 67 minutes. This divesite is very near Koror Marina in a silty lagoon, so the viz is not good. But for muck divers and critter lovers, excellent spot! I was first down and last up again, saw things others did not see...
Small wreck covered in soft and hard corals, don't spend too much time there but search the surrounding coral areas. Lots of worms and smaller fish. Tiny cleaner shrimps on anemones. I even photographed a mystery wrasse here; A new species?
It seems this fish is Oxycheilinus Celebicus or celebes wrasse. Quite rare and shy. Also these colours are very different from any I've seen in fish lists or books, so maybe it's a hybrid?
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