Palau
Palau almost ruined Diving for me.
I live on guam, and figured I need to take trips to some of the neighboring Islands before I leave here. I took a 7 day trip to Palau in the beginning of January, and WOW, it was so amazing that I almost don't want to dive Guam anymore because it pales in comparison. So, the flight into Palau was late at night, and the return flight left at 1am, so you really don't see anything as you arrive or leave. I only had pics to go by for seeing the layout of the archipelago. The hotel picked us up at the airport, and we checked in around 9pm. So, I like my technology, and palau is lacking in it seriously. we stayed at the west plaza Malakal, the only elevator was a tiny luggage elevator, the a/c was terrible, the bathroom would flood the room when we took showers, the room was very ...mildewy smelling there was no wifi, and it had a great view of a factory. If you don't care about 1st world amenities or the view, the location was great, it was within walking distance of both Sam's Tours and Fish and Fins (even though both companies pick you up every morning and drop you off when you want to leave.
We dove through Sam's Tours, and I loved the place. they have a small shop to get any minor gear you might need (such as reef hooks if you haven't been to Palau before, you kinda need one for lots of the good dives), and a bar/grill with well....bar food, and like almost every bar on Palau, they sell Palau's own local brew Red Rooster, which as far as national beers go is phenomenal! With 5 days of diving, I don't think we were on the same boat more than twice....they have at least 6 boats that each fit about 8 people w/up to 3 tanks each rather comfortably Plus the 2 guides.
The guides were VERY knowledgeable about each dive site, and they tried to keep groups of people together to the max extent possible day to day so you don't end up repeating the same dive site unless you want to. Most sites were about 20 min to an hour away from the shop, but it is through the rock islands with awesome views for the entire trip to/from the site.
Visibility was usually 100'+, with the exception of the wrecks we dove. On the note of said wrecks, I am used to Guam's wrecks which really have very sparse life on them....The wrecks in Palau were brimming with life lots of hard/soft corals, lots of color everywhere. Schools of Jacks, a few anemones, nudibranches, a couple of lionfish, lots of the fish you normally see on wrecks, but I feel that what really made them stand out was the coral growth.
Palau has AWESOME drift dives...New Drop Off, Siaes Corner, Blue Corner, Ulong Channel to name the ones we dove. Most of them were like riding a train, flying by in the current watching tons of pelagics...lots of turtles, and oh yeah the sharks I don't think we did a single (non-wreck/chandelier cave) dive where we didn't see at least a dozen sharks.
There were also 2 VERY unique experiences that so far as I know are Palau specific: Jellyfish lake, which is a neat experience swimming with Jellyfish that don't sting, and Sams offers a "Nautilus dive" where the night before, they drop a cage off into the depths and in the morning, they pull up some Nautilus to look at, play with and get pics with. then once you are done, you put it back into the cage and they lower them back down to eventually find their way back out, and you enjoy a nice wall drift.
And if you want to do something on the surface (or for the day you fly out), they have some great hiking/kayaking trips through the rock islands where you can learn a bit about the geology and history of the rock islands.
With such a myriad of options, ....sharks, Mantas (at German channel), Sharks, Jellyfish, Mandarinfish along the wall of the dive shop, turtles, WWII Wrecks... every diver should add Palau to their dive book
