Coming up!
The Palau Adventure continues as Jonathan braves the wicked currents of Peleliu corner
for some big shark action!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
The Republic of Palau is an island nation consisting of more then 500 beautiful, unspoiled
islands in the Pacific.
Camerawoman Julia and I have traveled halfway around the world to visit this tropical paradise,
exploring both above and below the water.
Our diving this week will be aboard the Rock Islands Aggressor, a luxury liveaboard dive
yacht.
Palau is located 500 miles east of the Philippines in the middle of the Pacific Ocean—pristine
waters for world-class scuba diving.
We have already done some incredible dives, and experienced some of Palau’s spectacular
underwater wonders.
We have visited coral caverns, found lots of sea turtles, met a curious Napolean wrasse,
and swam through walls and walls of fish over healthy reefs.
But one thing we haven’t seen much of: sharks.
Yet Palau is known for its shark action.
One of the only places we have seen sharks so far is off the stern of the boat.
Blacktip Reef sharks often approach large boats looking for some free food.
Fishermen often throw their scraps to the sharks.
So where are all the rest of the sharks?
Well it turns out they like to hang out in some places where the diving is not so easy.
After a few days of getting used to the underwater conditions, now our group is ready to take
on a legendary dive site.
We awake in a small protected bay off the island of Peleliu in the southern part of
Palau.
Peleliu is notorious for being the site of the bloodiest battle of the Pacific during
World War II.
Here, the United States and Japan fought for control of this tiny island in a battle that
took over 2 months.
13,000 men lost their lives.
Remnants of the battle are everywhere.
During the battle, American troops stormed Peleliu Beach, now a peaceful lagoon.
Just off the beach is Peleliu Corner, a reef that juts out into the ocean with a steep
dropoff.
Extreme currents rip up and across this reef.
And this is where we are diving.
If the current is strong, we’re not going to hook in, we’re just going to…
The morning begins with a dive briefing and we all need to pay close attention because
this dive site can be dangerous.
We can go to the corner, but we usually just stay in shallows depths rather than just on
the reef.
But we’re ready!
We drop into the water and quickly descend to the reef, which is bathed in clear oceanic
water.
The divemasters have dropped us upstream from the dive site, so we can drift with the current
down to the perfect spot on the corner of the wall.
This part is easy.
Once we reach the spot, we have to fight the current to stay in position, and maneuver
to our desired places.
Once we get there, we do something quite uncommon in scuba diving.
We actually anchor into the reef with a short line that has a hook on it.
Then we flap in the current like flags.
This actually does less damage to the reef than having a bunch of people hanging on and
kicking the coral.
We float above the reef without any effort.
And soon we have Gray Reef sharks around checking us out.
So why are they here?
The strong currents bring nutrients and plankton, which attracts large numbers of fish.
They don’t mind the current.
And that attracts sharks.
Unfortunately because the sharks are here for fish, they have little interest in us.
So sometimes, they don’t come very close.
But every few minutes a curious shark makes a pass to have a look at us.
Without the reef hooks, this dive would be almost impossible--especially with a camera.
The safest way to conduct this dive is to keep the group together.
So after a while, we all unhook at the same time, and drift down the reef to be picked
up by the boat.
We pass a large school of jacks.
And a Whitetip Reef shark.
And then a huge school of fish comes by.
These are Sailfin Snapper, also known as Blue-lined Sea Bream.
Astonishingly, these are normally solitary fish.
The only time they get together in schools like this, is to spawn.
And this school of fish seems to go on forever like a river.
But the shark action as it turns out, isn’t quite over.
Just as we are getting ready to ascend to the boat waiting above, a huge shadow emerges
from the blue.
It’s a whale shark!
She is not the biggest whale shark I have ever seen, but whale sharks are extremely
rare in Palau for some reason.
And this is the first time most of the divemasters have ever seen one in their lives.
As she heads off into the blue, everyone is a little disappointed.
But I have been around whale sharks a lot.
So I keep my camera ready.
They often circle back for a look.
And here she comes!
I believe whale sharks are pretty intelligent and truly curious.
Of course when you see a whale shark, you have to do a celebratory dance!
Whale sharks are so rare that when we tell the crew back on the Aggressor, they don’t
believe us!
Are you serious?
They actually saw
a whale shark?
Are you serious?
What did you see on the dive?
Nothing!
Whale shark!
As we celebrate over lunch, Captain Ike drives the boat out to open water on our way to the
next dive site.
Our next dive will be in the German Channel, where we will experience what could be described
as an underwater river dive.
So we kneel down for a while, wait a little bit…
Soon we are on our way to another adventure involving strong current.
We begin the dive at the mouth of the channel where the tide is pushing water up into the
channel.
With reef hooks in place, we wait for some shark action.
A few sharks pass by, but there isn’t too much going on.
So we unhook and do a drift dive with the incoming current up the channel.
The coral flies by and we don’t even have to kick.
Scuba Steve is impersonating a manta ray.
When we pass a couple of giant clams, I tuck out of the current to get a few shots.
Even though giant clams are protected, it takes a long time for them to get this big.
Although they feed on plankton by filtering it from the water with their siphons, they
also collect solar power with the photosynthetic symbiotic algae in their skin.
Soon I continue on my extremely strenuous dive, making my way back to the boat.
Zooming at high speed back towards the Aggressor, Captain Ike spots something in the water off
the port side of the tender.
A huge pod of dolphins is converging on us quickly.
Dolphins love to play in the bow wave of boats.
It’s their version of surfing.
Zach runs to the bow to catch the action with a GoPro!
I can’t believe he even got an underwater shot!
Soon we get too far from their stomping grounds, and the dolphins turn back.
And we return to our floating palace!
The currents of Palau can be challenging, but the rewards are worth the effort.
You never know what you might see.
But not all the amazing things in Palau require diving in heavy current.
The battle of Peleliu created quite a few shipwrecks that we will explore in the next
episode of our Palau Adventure!
Stay tuned!
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