Traveling to Palau is no easy task – I chose to fly Emirates to Manila via Dubai, then Continental Micronesia to Palau. On paper the stop overs looked a good idea, break up the travel, eat some food, do a little shopping but in the end it more than doubled the travel time.Something to bear in mind for the next trip to Asia/ South America!
With a travel distance of over 13,000 km and nearly three days I arrived tired, hungry and filled with a the hope of some excellent diving.
A quick note on the airports – Dubai is like most modern airports with row after row of identical shops selling exactly the same products. Manila, however, is something from the past and it’s very small. Facilities are limited with one cafe and the bar is unfortunately the smoking room. All in all, no a very pleasant stop over.
The flight to Palau is quite quick (just under 3 hours) and immigration a breeze followed by an efficient transf to the hotel – the Landmark Marina. The hotel is quite new and with all the usual facilities you’d expect these days. The main reason to choose the hotel was the 2 minute walk around to the corner to FishNFins.
FishNFins are a very welcoming 
operation – a quick run through of all the dive sites and various trips and I’m ready to go diving. I opted for the daily diving as time did not permit the liveaboard option. An interesting mandatory purchase at FishNFins is a waterbottle! Having dived all round the world this was the first time I’d seen a dive centre actively reducing the amount of plastic bottles used. They provide fresh chilled water on the boats during the day, and back at the centre.
The day normally consists of a 8am departure followed by three dives. Normally two in the morning then lunch and a third dive but this is flexible depending on prevailing sea conditions and choice of dive sites. The dive sites are all within an hour of the dive centre given the very powerful speedboats in use. Dive sites can be classified by geological curiosity or by the species of fish you’ll see. Want caves? Then Siaes Tunnel, Chandelier Cave and the Blue holes are a must. Sharks? Blue Corner, Peleliu Wall & Cut and Siaes Corner are where you’ll find the action. The dive guides are excellent and understand the tidal movements so will time your dives to maximise current and therefore the opportunity to see the majestical sharks.
A possible candidate for entry as a wonder of the natural world has to be Jellyfish Lake, or Ongeim’l Tketau as it is called in Palauan. Once you’ve finished your morning dives and had lunch you head over to the southern lagoon, on Mecherchar Island. It’s a strenuous walk up the paths to lake but it is an amazing site. Let the guide swim around the lake to find the jellyfish as the migrate around following the sun. Then gently swim amongst the jellyfish – they don’t sting so the only thing you have to worry about is damaging the jellyfish.!
So, does Palau live up to all the hype? Well, yes it does. If you need proof, check out my collection on flickr.
Leaving Palau, I headed back to Manila for a quick one night stop over and a domestic flight down to Cebu followed by a 4 hr car ride to the port at Maya. A little wait for the local boats to fill up enough and off we went to Bantigue Cove Beach Resort. On arrival I was welcomed and shown to my room – very basic and lacking air-conditioning! Eager to go diving I was extremely disappointed to find out that the in house dive shop did not provide Nitrox (a must for some of the key dive sites where the Thresher Sharks are to be found). So, I hitched a lift on the back of a motorbike and set off down through the jungle to the main area. Luckily I had also researched alternative dive shops so headed to the British run Thresher Shark Divers who delivered yet another disappointment – dives start at either 5 or 6am to catch the early morning action! Why a disappointment? There’s no way I could get transport from Bantigue Grove to the dive centre at that time in the morning. Only one thing for it, change accommodation! Several hair raising motorbike rides to collect my dive gear and I moved to Slam’s Garden Resort. Although lower in rating on tripadviser.com than Bantigue grove, Slam’s is very new, clean and has excellent air-conditioning.
The diving : going to Palau then diving somewhere else immediately is a very depressing experience. Although flora and fauna above sea level is very similar, underwater is not. First you notice the drop in visibility, secondly the variety and size of fish reduces significantly. Local fishing has decimated the underwater landscape – although it is a haven for macro species.
That said, the primary reason for visiting Malapscua was to find the elusive Thresher sharks. So, for a week I got up at 5am and headed out to Moad Shoal in search of sharks. The dive consisted of groups splitting up and scouring the mount at a depth of 26m looking for the sharks. The mounts side drop down to a depth of over 200m where the sharks patrol for food. In order to maximise time looking for the sharks, nitrox is a necessity. Most of the days was an amusing game of managing air consumption against no decompression time and the water temperature as there was a significant lack of shark activity.
Towards the end of the week, with no sightings from anyone, I was beginning to think I’d never see one. Then, with a stunning sun rise over the Philippine sea, I finally saw what I’d come for – a lone Thresher Shark. Photo? No chance, visibility and distance were against me on that day!
Would I go to Malapascua again? Probably – only because now I’m an advanced Trimix diver I’ll be able to go deeper and stay longer with the Thresher sharks!
