Location: Palau
Today we woke up and began to get our dive gear ready for a full day of diving. We split the entire boat up into two groups, so the diving group was me, Ryan, Josephine, Garrett, Jason, Drew, Ansley, Maddy, Kayla, Charles, Kat, and Anda. After we ate breakfast, the dive boat from Cruise Control came to pick us up from Vela. We loaded our gear and hopped on the boat for a 40-minute boat ride to the first dive site. The boat drove so fast, it was a crazy difference from sailing on Vela or even riding on our dinghies. The boat ride over was so beautiful, there were so many gumdrop islands and lone beaches. Palau is so incredible.
Once we got to our first dive site, we kitted up and jumped in the water. The advanced open waters were doing some make-up dives today if they missed anything on the first side of the trip, so they were training today. This dive was so beautiful, we went to about 70ft as our max depth and saw an amazing reef that felt like it stretched on for miles. We were all in shock at the health of the coral and the number of fish that we saw. When this dive was over, we got back on board and ate some Palau candy and drank some hot, sweet tea that they had prepared for us. They also had coolers full of hot water for us to rinse ourselves with to warm up. After we waited about 40 minutes, we went in for our deep dive. It was on this incredibly deep wall, and we went down to about 100 feet. This dive was so fun because we were all able to take some funny pictures together, some of us took our masks and regulators out to smile underwater, others tried to stand upside down on people, and other funny poses. Ryan, Garrett, Jason, and I took a photo underwater, which Ben photobombed with his reg and mask on; it was absolutely hilarious. We saw a shark on this dive in the distance, and Josephine tried to chase it, which was really funny. We headed up the wall to shallower water and saw a lot of schooling fish. This was the last dive at this dive site before we head back to the dive shop for lunch. On the drive back, they gave us these large neoprene jackets that kept us so warm. I definitely need to invest in one for diving in the future. We had bento boxes at the dive shop and were able to have hot drinks since they had a kettle. Once we were done with lunch, finished our surface interval, and the boat was loaded back up, we headed into the channel that Vela is anchored near for a wreck dive. The boat was an old fishing vessel that was sunk on purpose to create an artificial reef. This dive was really cool because a lot of people in our group hadnt done a wreck dive before, so it was cool to see them experience this for the first time. This was a really bittersweet dive because we were so excited to dive a wreck, but we were so sad this was our last dive altogether as a group. After this dive, we went back to Vela for the rest of the day, where we met up with the other group that was on shore and ate some really good dinner.
The other group, which consisted of everyone else on the boat, went to a waterfall and went hiking, and were able to see some things going on with the Pacific Games, which were happening downtown in Palau.
Today was a really good day, but it is so, so sad that the 40-dayers are leaving so soon!
Hi mom and dad I love you guys, mom youre really missing out on the diving here. You have to come to Palau sometime in the future! Dad, not sure if theres any golf courses here, but if there are, it would be a really pretty place to golf.