Tuesday and Wednesday in Paradise :]

Hi all!

Ok, so I'm moving to Palau and never coming home, sorry.

Yesterday (Tuesday I think), we were supposed to be ready at 10 AM. I got up around 6 and ate some breakfast. It's very Asian-influenced (think stir fried rice for bfast), but good. I had coffee and some kind of blueberry bread of some sort, yummy!

I decided to snorkel instead of sit around until 10, so Lauren (Squirt) and Casey (Pearl). We saw so much! Just outside of the hotel! Oh, and today was the first day we were on Palau with sunlight, so I was surprised to see a big rock island just behind the hotel, making a sort of private ocean pool for the hotel.

FYI, the rock islands are made of old reef structure, which now exists as limestone rock. Tectonic plate movement and time has exposed the rock. There are many rock islands, and they sit above the, some very high, covered with trees and shrubs. At the bottom of the rocks, there is a sort of notch, where the water has eroded away the rock. You know when it's high tide or low tide; at high tide, the rock looks like a rocks coming out of the water. In low tide, the rocks look like some odd rock islands floating above the water, suspended almost, kind of Avatar-esque feel.

Anywho, the rock islands are awesome! And the water is wonderfully warm. Just from our short, spontaneous snorkel around the hotel area, we saw spade fish (one of my favorites: fish with fins on their backs and bellies, rather than sides), territorial fish (who shot up into my face when I was free diving nearby), lots of coral and colorful fish, giant clams!, tiny jellyfish that stung Pearl and Squirt, crabs, and a plane wreck! The territorial fish scared me and made me not want to free dive too close to any coral again... but I still do. Giant clams are awesome! They have a mouth opening with beautiful, tie-dyed, psychadelic coloring that is different with every clam. I want one!!!! A boat captain told our group in Guam that if you poke your hand in a clam, it will close, and you will drown. Ruh roh, not doing that! But if the clams are big enough, the "lips" are too extensive and the clam can't physically close all the way. So, snorkeling at the hotel, we found a massive giant sea clam (redundant? I think not) and I touched it. Oh yeah. They sort of retract when they sense danger is close, but this guy was too puckered up to hold me down. Cool! There was also a small plane still sitting in the water. It was shallow enough for me to free dive down to it, but when I did, this mean, territorial white fish came up at me suddenly and got right in my face. Eek! I screamed a bit underwater and swam back up fast. Yikes! The plane is super small, but the wings are still there and most of the body too. I really want to swim down and sit in it, but I'm afraid of what might be in there.

After our snorkel, we got on a boat with our gear and headed to the dive shop. There, we explored the marine center for a while. They have an aquarium there with lots of fish exhibits and small blurbs on fish life and ecosystem management in Palau. This is where I got to take pictures of a sea turtle, black tipped shark, lionfish, NAUTILUS, hot pink fishies, OCTOPI (plural of octopus), Nemo and his anemone, and weird fish. I took a picture looking into an accurately-designed tank, and it came out looking something like what it looks like to Scuba dive. Check it out! I really love the octopi. They change colors so quickly! Their tank has white coral on the bottom, so they were often white, but when they swim a bit they turn brown spotted right away, and when the one was frightened, big black circle appeared around his eyes. The other one came up to him and they fought a little, both getting black circles around their eyes, then they parted ways. Haha! A nautilus is a cephalopod, some call it a "living fossil." They c

Lunch was a Bento box, a Japanese? type of meal that comes in a box, all cafeteria style, with marinated meat or fish or some veggie thing, rice, sweetened egg, salad with ginger dressing, and a brownie. So good! We all enjoyed these immensely.

When the dive boat was ready for us, we loaded 34 air tanks and all of gear and headed out. The boat was kind of unsafe, so we had to stay put on the seats and nearby, rather than ride on the front of the boat. We made it to our first dive, a wreck. Jim Haw told us all very simply: no penetrating the wreck. Penetrate, and I will kill you. Bhaha. Ok, ok! We won't "penetrate." With our gear on, the boat stopped, and a lot of people near the back of the boat, we started taking on a lot of water. Like, a LOT. David asked is this normal? and the guys driving laughed at us and kind of avoided an answer/said yes. EEEK! I don't want the boat to sink with my good camera and passport and stuff! Oh dear. But it didn't sink, and I'm still alive, no worries.

Going down, I could not see a wreck because the visibility was so poor. Hmm? Is this the correct sight? Then it suddenly began to appear... a huge ship! It was covered, absolutely swarmed with corals and giant clams and other nifty things. In comparison with the wreck in Guam, this one was a lot more deteriorated and taken over by sea life. In other words, it was a lot more biodiverse. I found it funny that there was a dead old giant clam on the front of the ship that was propped open, so it looked like the ship had a claw reaching out to whatever was in front of it when it sank. Jim found a spot with ammo, a rifle, and a canon. Cool! Then he didn't recognize me and showed it to me again... hehe.

We surfaced and headed out to a reef for our next dive, chillaxing a bit during our Surface Interval Time of 1 hour. Rounding the bend among the rock islands, we found HUGE group of Asian tourists snorkeling. And lots of boats moving in and out. Hmm, I don't think I feel comfortable diving in water with so much traffic... so we decided to move to a different site. It looked just like the previous site we were at, a small lagoon looking area among the rock islands. I hope the visibility is better here!

Once we were in the water, we descended with transect tape and slates to record fish and invert numbers, as well as evidence of coral bleaching and trash. It was a little chaotic, and there was a bit of silt in the water due to the high tide, but we got our acts together and started our counting. It was so beautiful! I can't recall anything spectacular that I saw, but I'm sure I saw a nice bunch of giant clams and pretty fishies, like parrotfish, which are so colorful! It amazes me how they have evolved to grow up with so many unique lines and dots and shades of the most vibrant colors. Whoa.

After our dives, four of us stayed with David to clean up the tanks and such back at the dive site, while the rest of us headed back to the hotel. I was tempted to lay out a bit, but it was getting late-ish and so I decided to shower and smell good instead. Diving in the ocean makes you feel disgusting. The salt and icky sea life water sits on your skin and makes you all sticky, as well as sweaty from the humidity. AKA ew.

I ordered a smoothie first thing when I got back to the hotel. I decided to mix up a mango pineapple smoothie, and the girl said she would bring it to my room, sweet! When it came up it was SOOOOOOOOOOO good. Ahhhh. Everyone had a little sip, and later down in the lobby more people started ordering mango pineapple smoothies, though they didn't taste as good as mine :[ I felt bad for them!

We ate dinner in the lobby: I had a nicoise salad with tuna and sardines. My tongue felt like it was bubbling up from the salty sardines. Everyone else got food and didn't like it and they were starving so it wasn't really a happy situation. But we were laughing all dinner and resigned to never eat dinner down in the lobby if we could help it again. Well, we had tried to eat at the Japanese restaurant on the second floor, but when we got up there, it was stuffed full of people, and they said that they we needed to have a reservation to eat there. Psh! Meanies. Just wait until tomorrow... We got ice cream to make ourselves happy. And then we were happy. I split mine with Flipper and fed him like a little kid, hehe.

Then bed time...

. . .

Wednesday, I got up and went downstairs with swimsuit and goggles, only to discover that we were supposed to be ready at 8:30 to go and it was about 7:30... hmm, but I still wanted to swim/snorkel a bit before going to the dive shop! So I did. I didn't see anything new, but I swam swam a bit, like swimming laps, then snorkeled, and it was very nice to be able to do that.

We hopped into taxi vans and met up at the marine lab. We didn't know where to go, so we ended up chilling in front of the gift shop for a while. Soon David was there with the boat and we headed off to load our gear. Apparently, he needed to get permits for us to be able to go to our dive sites today. $35 dollars each! Whoa.

We slowed down at a place where the water was lighter blue next to deep blue, but it turns out it was just engine problem. Eek! I don't wanna sink! We do have B.C.'s that can inflate and we could swim back to shore, but I don't wanna sink!!! Once the engine started working again, and it stopped working a few more times on our way out, we made it to our actual dive site: THE DROP OFF. Yes, the drop off, just like in Finding Nemo!!! The water was deep, deep blue, hundreds and hundreds of feet, next to a blob of very light blue, shallow water, teeming with life. I was so stoked!

We hopped into the water, Squirt as my partner, and descended. WHOA. This was by far the most magnificent dive of my life. And I will probably never see a site as beautiful as this one. It was so colorful and wonderful and amazing AH. We ended up staying down for 57 minutes, the longest dive of my life, at which point David and Jim were nearly pushing us up to the surface. Hehe oops. We saw Nemo and his family in the anemone again!!! And this weirdo fish: he was black and white, with a tall fin that went up and touched the surface of the water. It was so tall in comparison to his body, it almost looked like a sailboat in comparison with his body. Continuing this metaphor, he also had a fin below himself: he was a triangle shape, but more obtuse than anything. He also had two little fins at his sides pointing down. He was just chillin near the surface, just barely scraping the surface of the water. It was just so hilarious to see this weirdo fish cruising along. Hehe. I would not have noticed it either if Squirt has not pointed it out to me. Thanks! I saw lots of beautiful, colorful giant clams, which I would try to get as close as possibly to so I could see them shrivel up; sea stars, blue coral and bleached white coral and red coral, weird spiny cone-structures that looked fun to touch, though I didn't, worms that looked like underwater centipedes, sea urchins of all sizes inhabiting one rock, butterfly fish, idol fish (Gill from Finding Nemo), fishies swimming in pairs, in schools, big ones swimming alone in the deep blue water just next to the drop off, brain corals, etc. etc. I could just go on all day! Anyways, it was the shortest 57 minutes of my life. I didn't want it to end! We also took a picture with the USC flag underwater, it should be a cool pic.

We surfaced, hopped on the boat, and headed to our next dive site. We ate lunch on the boat, Bento Boxes again yum!, and sitting in the front with a bunch of peeps it hit me: I don't want to move past this moment in time. The sun was shining, the ocean was sparkling, I didn't want to leave. Ever. Ah, it makes me sad just thinking about now. Heaven.

But we still had time to kill, and Flipper and I saw a sandbar, so I suggested we go there and he agreed so we went. Soon everyone was following because we had found paradise!!!!! For realz. Imagine a circular beach with soft, soft perfect sand in the middle of the ocean, with tons of shallow beach water surrounding it, so you can sit in the water just up to your belly button and chillax. It. Was. Amazing. Perfect. Spectacular. Heaven. I don't know what else to say. We all got a huge wind of energy and started to run around in the water and tackle each other and roll around. David and Jerry followed us out and we took a picture. It was amazing! OMG it hit me again then how much I want to stop time and never leave. It was such a wonderful moment in time, and I knew then that it would never happen again. Even if we were come back, separately or in a group, to this site in a year or more, it will probably not exist and have moved on because it is a sandbar after all, and a small one at that, so it is moving often. So sad. And happy. Too many emotions to explain! We also found a lunch of styrofoam with a crab on it so cute!

We had to leave eventually, and I grudgingly swam back to the boat. I partnered with Christine and we went down to 40 ft. to lay a transect line. There was a lot of big white coral here, and I ended up swimming under a big fan of one to see a giant clam. David swam by and I looked up at him, started to rise in the water, and knocked my head on the coral. Some broke off in my hair! Whoops. I felt terrible and clumsy and stupid. I mumbled to myself "I'm an idiot," for a while. Ugh. But I'm over it now.

It was cool laying a transect line here because we were on the near vertical cliff of the drop off. Sick! I saw a chubby sea star that I later found out Flipper had strategically moved the sea star there so that we would see it hehe. I was trying to be very careful not to touch any more coral and break it off the entire dive. At one point, I was investigating a cave area and something huge--think 3-4 ft. long-- swam quickly back into the dark hole. I wanted to look in but I was too afraid of bumping into more coral to get close enough. Oh well! Maybe it's better that I didn't go look in there....

Christine and I swam to meet up with the group and looked around a bit, seeing a bunch of pretty fishies, including this one that was spotted like a jaguar. And a black and white one that had both stripes and spots. We chilled for a bit until DanK had to surface cause he was low on air, so we slowly went up. I was very sad to go.

We headed back to shore, dropped people off near the hotel, and I stayed with three other girls and David to clean up the boat. We had to lift heavy tanks, clean nasty B.C.'s and regulators, the whole time under a killer hot sun. I was dripping sweat, ew. But we had fun doing it. We caught a cab back to the hotel and got ripped off: it should cost $4 and we knew that, but, Bonnie was her name, charged us $8, then accepted $7. Rip off! Back at the hotel, I asked to make a reservation at the Japanese restaurant, and they told me that they weren't sure yet if they were taking reservations. Hmm, weird? Jim went up a little later to ask again and then it was suddenly okay to make a reservation. WTF? Whatevs.

People met up at 6:30 and even David came (he's staying at the marine lab) and we sat down at he Japanese restaurant with grumbling bellies. I ordered a dinner deal, sashimi (tuna, herring, shrimp, and two other kinds of fishies), miso soup, salad, tempura fried shrimp, sushi, hot green tea, and an orange slice for dessert. DELICIOUS. and I have been complaining to everyone that all I want is sushi. I am now satisfied. We had a ton of fun at dinner, and we stayed later (like 2.5 hours hehe) and talked and talked with David. It was so much fun! Sabrina and I pretend "rushed" David like we would at a sorority, it was hilarious. Flipper got it on camera. And I learned how to say a naughty phrase in Japanese... not gonna say it.

After we went on a night snorkel. I was afraid of the dark water, but I went anyways. First thing we saw was a 3 ft. trumpet fish, just chillin under us. We also saw a sting ray and all I could thing about was Steve Irwin :[ I didn't get too close... We were looking for the plane wreck cause it would look creepy at night, but we couldn't find it. I was with Flipper and Squirt, and soon we noticed that Pearl and Danimal were out there too. We all joined and swam out in one direction until... we nearly ran into the limestone rock island! Whoa. I was inches away, whoa. I saw some glowing eyes that quickly disappeared at one point, yikes! I started to feel a bunch of pin pricks on my skin. Baby jellies! Ouch! It was just like a pin prick, which isn't too bad, but after a while and with pricking on my abdomen, etc. it started to get annoying and then painful so Squirt and I decided to get out. But this was not before we turned our lights off completely and moved our hands around underwater, watching the bio luminescence in the water. COOL. And we floated on our backs and looked up at the amazing stars. Awesome. The milky way is directly above us! It's sooooooo cool! Gosh I love stars.

We crawled out and got some ice cream. Yummmm. Looking into the water from a suspended bar, we saw cuddle fish! They are little squid guys who are so funny to watch, scooting around and eating stuff. There are also four humongous giant clams chillin right there. Awesome! We moved over to lawn chairs to get out of the light, then to the dock, where Pearl told me all about the stars (because she knows so much about them). I loved it. I didn't want to leave.

Eventually we had to go back to our rooms, I showered and saw on BBC the tragic flooding in Pakistan. Wow, it's crazy to realize how out-of-sync I have been with reality and what is going on around the world right now. I feel ignorant, but at the same time at ease.

It felt wonderful to fall asleep... and now I'm at breakfast writing this, so excited for the climax of our trip to Palau JELLYFISH LAKE. Today. Right. Now. !!!!!!!!!

With the jellies,

B