Divers: Dianne, Peter, Vikki & Mark
Water Temperature: 32 Degrees
Visibility: 30 metres plus.

Palau is world famous for its Wall dives, Pelagic Fish, Sharks and Manta Rays, but we were looking at diving some of the lesser known wreck sites. Of course we did dive the famous sites such as Blue Holes, Blue Corner, Ulong Channel & German Channel which certainly deserve the reputation they enjoy as world class dive sites.
Most of the wrecks in Palau were salvaged and therefore don't have a lot of artefacts but they are still great dives with most being worthy of several dives. Buoy 6 Wreck, Iro, Ryuku Maru, Chuyo Maru, Gozan Maru and Amatsu Maru were some of the wrecks we did. The Helmet Wreck is a must do, it was not salvaged and therefore still has rifles, bottles and the stack of helmets of course but for me the highlight of the dive was the navigation lights we found in the Lantern Room. Our last day of diving saw us dive both the LST Type 1 and also the Teshio Maru. Even though we were diving EAN32, each day, after our first dive we would find a small island to have lunch on and get up some surface interval and maybe some sightseeing prior to our second dive (or maybe third) of the day. On the last day our boat driver Arson, takes us to look at the snakes. The snakes are sunning themselves on the rocks at the water's edge, there sure are a lot of snakes!! Arson then moves the boat only about fifty metres away and he ties off to an overhanging tree branch whilst we have lunch, once lunch is finished & we have enough surface interval it's time to do our second dive of the day. We expect Arson to relocate the boat somewhere away from the snakes but no!!! JC the dive guide starts our dive brief & points to a blowout in the rock face (back towards the snakes!!) where we are to descend. The LST Type 1 is not dived often, in fact our guide JC, who is supposed to be the wreck guide specialist, had only dived the site 2 weeks prior when SOE team members Mal (a recent guest speaker at Aquability) and Jonny O who took him to dive the site, in fact he told me it was the first time he had ever had customers show him around a wreck!! What a great wreck it is, although not big, about 50 metres long, it has a lot to see including some personal items and a few unexploded bombs. There is plenty of peno but some of it is tight, dark and very silty. The first dive of the day was certainly one of the best of the trip, this dive has something for everyone, being shallow we get a good long bottom time, plenty to look at and some very good peno. The Engine Room is tight but there is plenty to see. The ship lies on its Starboard side wide the Port Gunwale is in 10 metres which makes our first deco stop interesting, with plenty to see and plenty of holes to stick one head in for a look.
Dive trips are exactly that - dive trips, and accommodation is not normally something that is at the top of the list or requirements, but I must say our 'digs' at PPR were pretty cool. Sitting at the Island Bar with an umbrella in our drink and dry roasted peanuts was a great way to finish off each day's diving. Breakfast the next morning was sitting on the balcony of the dining room overlooking the water whilst tea and coffee are delivered on silver service.