Palau Underwater World

The real attraction of Palau is the below water’s surface. The underwater world of Palau is fantastic. You do not have to be a certified diver to enjoy its beauty. Crystal clear water helps you to view the beautiful soft corals, colorful small fishes and spectacular reefs. When you are lucky, you could see sharks, napoleon wrasse and turtle from far away. Cool, isn’t it?
Best snorkeling spots are Soft Coral, Cemetery Reef, around Fantasy Island and around Ngermeaus Island.

If snorkeling is that amazing, what about diving? A mixture of tropical fishes with warm water and great visibility are appealing for divers. Most Wanted Diving Spot in Palau is Blue Corner. When the sky is clear and tide is high, more than 100 divers could dive in this place. Wondering why? Two things that make this place very famous; first, you are challenged to dive in the strong current. Second, you are tested to dive with school of sharks!! Imagine there are 10 sharks swimming around you? Not to count some of nursing sharks that sleep on the bottom! However, do not be afraid because these sharks are used to the presence of the divers, so they would never attack you. Not everyday you could have this experience, diving with school of friendly sharks!

Tips: never forget to bring your reef hook so you can hold on to the reef wall to enjoy the sharks show.

Another well-known dive spots in Palau is German Channel. In olden times, Germany completed this channel to help the boat travel through the barrier reef in Southern Palau without having to be trapped by the reefs. What you can find in German Channel is Manta Ray and Spotted Eagle Ray. Camouflaged Sting Ray also easily found here. Normally these big creatures having its cleaning station in this spot.

Palau’s diving is also famed for its wall or drop-off diving. It is recommended to dive in Big Drop-Off and New Drop-Off. In these spots you can have beautiful scenery of various soft corals, colorful anemones, anthias, school of barracuda, bumphead parrot fish, napoleon wrasse, giant clams and turtles!

Blue Hole, Siaes Tunnel, Turtle Cove, Shark City and Ulong Channel are another great dive spots. Palau also offers Wreck Dive, but I was not able to do it back then. I believe it would be as great as the other dive spots.

Recommended dive operators are: Neco Marine, Sam’s Tour, Fish and Fins and Ocean Hunter. Guarantee you will have an unforgettable diving experience in your life! What are you waiting for? Get WET!!

Jellyfish Lake, Palau

You can’t miss Jellyfish Lake when you go to Palau. It is a MUST to visit this place. This spectacular thing can only be found in two places in the whole world. One in Derawan-Indonesia and the other one are here, in Palau.

Jellyfish Lake is located somewhere around the Rock Islands. Since the lake is a bit isolated, you need to exercise your hiking and climbing skill to get there. It’s not hard at all. In fact, it’s really fun!

The lake is a salt water lake, trapping the jellyfish that live there and also developed their symbiosis with photosynthetic algae. As a result, they lost their ability to sting.

Uh oh, so does it mean they are sting less jellyfish?? Yes, they are!! You don’t have to worry to get rashes from touching the jellyfish!

During the day the jellyfish follow the cycle of the sun. Normally the jellyfish head toward the surface to harness the sun's energy when the sun bright over the lake. The lake is a fragile ecosystem. Visitors are allowed to swim with the jellyfish but it is recommended that you do not use fins and swim slowly and carefully as to not disturb the jellyfish.

It’s magical to swim, snorkeling and diving with millions of jellyfish around you! I was thrilled! I bet you will too :)

Boracay, Philippines

Randy and I learned our lessons! So this time, we did our homework :) We did a lot of researches about Boracay Island for about a month before our departure date. We flew from Manila to Kalibo with Cebu Pacific and took a bus to go to Caticlan. It took us 2 hours to reach Caticlan, but it was a jolly ride. The view is amazing because we could see the ocean on one side and the rice paddies on the other side. After we arrived in Caticlan peer, a guy from 3-5-7 Boracay Resort picked us up and helped loading our bags to the boat. Another 20 minutes to reach the destination and finally we were on White Beach of Boracay!

SNORKELING
Our first stop to snorkel was Crocodile Island. It was so pretty and the fishes were very friendly. Despite of the strong current, we were so happy being in the water! We found NEMO, Lobster, soft corals and we fed different kind of fishes! In this spot, you could fee the fishes easily.

The next stop was Crystal Cove. We had to hike and walked down through a steep stairs also crawled through a tunnel to be able to snorkel there. It was worth doing because the water was as clear as crystal and warm and no current! Randy and I jumped into the water and started to explore the underwater view. It was great until I saw a SEA SNAKE!! I was scared to death and started swimming away and left Randy all alone and freaked out. Haha. Both of us almost got heart attack! :D

DIVING
There are many dive shops on the island but we decide to dive with Calypso Diving Resort. I went to Balihay wall with Jade, the dive guide and Masa, a Japanese guy. It was a good dive. I saw a baby stingray, lion fishes and pigmy horse and sea snake! (not again...:D) At noon we went back to Calypso because Randy was going to take a Discover Scuba Diving class. He was very nervous since he doesn't know how to swim but as soon as he suited up, put on his diving gear and jumped into the water he was excited! It took an hour for him in the swimming pool to learn basic knowldege of diving. That afternoon we had to dive in different dive spots since Randy is not certified yet. My dive at Fridays Rock was awesome! We dove with school of bat fishes around us, I got to see different nudibranchs, 3 kinds of puffers and a FROG FISH! Randy enjoyed his diving as well. He found NEMO! The funny thing that Randy told me was his instructor had to drag him around :D

SUNSET - SAIL BOAT
This is the activity that we enjoyed the most while we were there. We enjoyed the sunset on a sailboat that brought us around Boracay Island. Very romantic and relaxing. But, always get ready to get wet...

NIGHT LIVE
Boracay is so alive at night! There are so many choices of food and places to eat on the beach and you could enjoyed live music too! We ate at Hobbit House, pretty unique experience. Buffet is very cheap and the food are great, mostly cost less than Php300. Shopping still can be done at the D Mall Boracay. It's a nice complex to hang out and sightseeing. Challenge yourself to try Wall Climbing in that area!

Beside enjoying the nature, we learned that sometimes we need to step out from our comfort zone to try new things. I'm very proud of Randy to try scuba diving eventhough he doesn't know how to swim and really enjoyed it! We really enjoyed our time in Boracay and wished it didn't come to an end :) We got back to Manila and unpacked our dirty cloths, exhausted but the memories stay in our minds forever.