Coming up, Jonathan visits the picture perfect islands of Palau, where he meets a friendly
sea turtle, visits a huge coral cavern and joins a slack tide party.
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
The Republic of Palau is an unspoiled and remote island nation known as one of the world’s
top diving destinations.
Consisting of more than 500 islands surrounded by beautiful clear water and healthy reefs,
Palau is definitely a diving paradise.
It is also a bit famous for this brackish lake, filled with millions of non-stinging
jellyfish.
The water is consistently very clear, with visibility generally more than 100 feet.
The narrow channels between the shallow reefs often have manta rays gulping down plankton
in the current.
And the green islands are a picture postcard of tropical paradise.
Located 500 miles east of the Philippines, Palau isn’t close to anything.
After two days of flying, Camerawoman Julia and I are on our way to the liveaboard dive
boat that will be our home for the week—the Rock Islands Aggressor.
This large catamaran is part of the Aggressor Fleet, a worldwide brand of luxury boats catering
specifically to divers.
For 7 days we will live on this amazing boat and have access to dive sites all around the
islands of Palau.
Our diving will be done from this smaller tender, which is fast and maneuverable for
plucking divers out of the water as they surface.
But the coolest part is the boat lift, where they lift the tender out of the water for
easy access!
We arrive with a bunch of other guests, welcomed with a cool drink.
The crew unloads all of our gear while we get our first briefing on how everything will
work on board.
On the lower deck, we find the cabins where we all sleep.
There’s an outdoor seating area, a salon where we eat and relax, an upper deck to enjoy
the sunsets and of course the main dive deck where all the wet stuff stays.
The first night, Cruise Director Ben Clark gives us our first dive briefing, and introduces
the crew.
Early the next morning we are all suited up in wetsuits and ready for our first dive.
Divemaster Star gives us a briefing on the site.
Palau has a lot of current, so paying attention is important.
Then we board the tender for our first adventure!
We have a few minutes to put on our gear during the ride out to the dive site with captain
Ike driving the boat.
Finally we get to the mooring.
For our first dive we are doing an easy site with no current.
We are greeted with crystal clear conditions, and an amazing reef drop off.
On the top of the reef we find a chimney, which is basically a vertical hole in the
reef that we can drop straight down into.
I follow the twinkling light beams slowly into the depths.
Soon the chimney turns horizontally, forming a sort of cavern in the side of the wall.
At just over a hundred feet, we enter a fantastic world where only our bubbles seem to know
which way is up.
The light down here is magnificent but we only have a couple minutes before we need
to head up to shallower water for the rest of the dive.
Cruising along the edge of the wall, I soar like an Eagle ray over the precipice, which
drops into the blue abyss, out of sight.
The wall forms a vertical habitat, with huge red gorgonian corals reaching into the current
for plankton to eat.
A pair of Sweetlips hang out in their living room, behind a pink soft coral gently swaying.
Drifting with the current, I come across a Hawksbill sea turtle hunting for sponges to
eat.
Once she gets used to my lights, she goes about her business.
Hanging back a ways from the other divers so all their bubbles won’t scare my subjects,
I come across a Spadefish hovering head-up at a cleaning station.
As I move in for a shot, the fish moves away, revealing a green sea turtle.
At first I think she is positioning herself for a nap in her favorite spot.
But as I continue to observe, I notice that she is actually using the coral to scratch
her shell.
You might not suspect that a sea turtle could feel anything on the outside of its shell,
but the fact that sea turtles are often seen scratching an itch, definitely means they
do.
And sometimes humans offer a welcome bit of help.
You should never just swim up to a sea turtle and try to scratch its shell.
But if I see a sea turtle desperately trying to reach an itch, I feel it’s OK to lend
a gentle hand.
And when that itch has been scratched, off she goes.
After a relaxing safety stop, it’s time to head to the boat.
Julia and I pop up from the dive with lots of great memories and some fun footage for
Blue World fans everywhere.
Then it’s back to the Rock Island Aggressor for some lunch.
We are met by Ripan with some cold drinks.
Man, I can get used to this!
While we all enjoy a nice lunch, Captain Ike is moving the Aggressor to another area.
I expect to see a big wheel, but he’s driving with a tiny joystick, like a video game!
Captain Ike has been navigating these waters for many years, and he knows how to get this
huge vessel up the middle of a narrow channel, barely deep enough for the keel in a strong
current.
After lunch, another dive briefing for another dive.
Alright, let’s go diving!
For us, every dive is new and exciting…you just have no idea what you might see.
Once again the tender is lowered into the water and off we go!
Soon we are speeding over the waves towards a current-swept reef known for exceptional
marine life.
Palau is known for strong currents, and some of the dive sites have incredible shark action
that can only be seen if the divers use reef hooks to hang on.
So for this dive we all have our reef hooks and we are ready for the current.
I’ve been hooked.
I don’t know about this!
We have to roll in together and swim quickly down to the reef because you can’t always
swim against the current.
But soon we realize that we have hit perfectly at slack tide, and there is almost no current.
As a result, the fish are relaxing.
Instead of swimming hard in formation to maintain their positions, they are acting like a bunch
of kids at recess, just enjoying themselves.
A big Napolean Wrasse comes over to say hi.
That is one big fish!
I’m glad he is friendly!
This fish is almost always at this dive site, but tends to be the most curious when the
current is not too strong.
As I swim along the reef, the fish are so chill, they don’t even mind my lights.
A sea snake is hunting through the reef for shrimp.
Out of the corner of my eye I see one school of fish is spawning.
And another school of fish swoops in to feast on the eggs.
But some of those eggs will escape and turn into baby fish.
There are so many fish that it’s hard to figure out what to film next.
But then I see Bumphead parrotfish, some of the oddest-looking characters on the reef.
The Bumphead is aptly named, and being the largest herbivorous fish on the reef, it eats
algae that it gnaws from the reef with some big teeth.
And the bump head is for fighting!
At the top of the reef, a big school of snapper poses for my camera.
If they look like they are not up to much, that’s because they mostly chill out over
the reef during the day, then head out to hunt over sandy habitats at night when their
preferred food—things like shrimp and other crustaceans--comes out.
Nearby, a school of Goldspot Seabream, with their characteristic golden yellow spots.
I love these fish, they always look like they have sunlight shining on their butts!
Like the Snapper, they are waiting for darkness to hunt, because let’s face it, they aren’t
sneaking up on anything during the day with those golden butts!
After an unexpectedly relaxing dive, Julia and I head reluctantly back to the surface.
Man, when the tide goes slack, the fish come out to party!
That dive was just completely full of action, with fish swimming up into the water column.
They were spawning, and a sea snake came along!
What a great dive!
As the sun gets low in the sky, we cruise on back to the Rock Islands Aggressor.
We’re hungry and ready to dry out a little.
During dinner we enjoy an insanely beautiful sunset, but we won’t be dry for long.
Because Julia and I are going on the night dive.
Well, we have been seeing a lot of sea turtles here in Palau, but tonight we’re going to
go see what they are doing after dark.
One last time for the day, our tender hits the water.
And soon after, we hit it too.
Without strong sunlight filtered through seawater making everything look blue, the true colors
of the reef pop under our video lights.
Red, yellow, orange and pink…these colors are so hard to see during the day.
A sponge is covered in tiny worm-like sea cucumbers surviving in a symbiotic relationship.
A huge nudibranch the size of a shoe is searching for food.
A drowsy anemonefish is wondering why some dude turned on the lights.
A lionfish is on the prowl.
We find some sea turtles and watch them for a while.
They don’t seem to be doing much.
I would expect them to be sleeping but they are just pacing back and forth up and down
the reef.
It’s possible that these are females with eggs, waiting for the right moment to head
ashore to lay them in a nest.
Our trip to Palau was quite an adventure.
By the end of the week we had explored shipwrecks and a plane wreck, visited jellyfish lake,
dove in ripping currents using reef hooks, and we even saw a whale shark!
But for those adventures you will have to be patient, because our Palau adventure is
to be continued…
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