Palau 2, The Rock Islands


Snorkeling and Diving The Rock Islands After driving around looking for another place to stay the first day, we decided to just go back to the Waterfromt Villa and pay through to the end of the week. The kids jumped in the pool, and I grabbed my mask and snorkel and waded into the water lapping outside our hotel room. There was a mangrove out there that I thought might be interesting. It wasn't. If you want to do some snorkeling, the north shore of Koror is not the place to do it. A few days later, when the tide went out, I found out why. The entire area I'd been snorkeling turned into a mud flat. Anyway, with our host Arnold's help, we booked a boat to the Rock Islands for the next day and got a good night's sleep. The price of the full day snorkeling tour with lunch for two adults and two kids? USD $265 through Arnold, over $300 from other outfits when I called around.
	I've had arial views of the Rock Islands of Palau as the desktop on my PC for some time now (from webshots.com). Those round or oblong blobs of tropical vegetation floating on the deep blue sea are something that most of us can recognize, but where exactly are they? I thought they were somewhere far out to sea, and we'd need to take a helicopter or overnight cruise to get to them. Not so. Sure, they extend miles to the south of Koror, and a helicopter tour must be super (didn't hear of any while there, though), but they actually adjoin, even surround Koror. You can see them sticking out of the sea next to the highway as you cross the bridge to Malakal Island. As I mentioned on page one, you also get a gorgeous view from the Hotel Niko Palau. The picture at left is a picture of a picture, not something we actually saw from the air, unfortunately.
Our tour started with our driver coming to get us at the hotel at 8:30 am and driving us down to the Neco Marine pier on Malakal. The bus driver told me, when I asked, that Neco is a company formerly owned by a late president. Judging by the number of businessed named "Neco," I'd say the current owners seem to run a good part of the island of Koror. Anyway, we didn't have to join a big snorkeling party for our trip through the Rock Islands; we had a thrity- foot launch with dual 200 hp Yamaha outboard engines all to ourselves.
	After a 30-minute cruise through the Islands, our guide anchored the boat above a bed of tridacna clams. Yes, they still exist even in this day and age and come in various colors with their big round spouts up and puffing. The shameful thing is that they were the only thing to see below water, as all the coral around them was dead. I asked when the coral had died, and the reply was that it went the year El Niño hit. It gave me the impression that all coral in the world had gone belly-up and that I was lucky to have seen what I saw in the early and mid-1990s. Luckily, that did not turn out to be true. If this picture looks a little wierd, it's because it's been rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Cock your head to the left and look again.
The next stop was Ngermeaus Island, where we pulled up for lunch. There is a beach there, something that not so many of the Rock Islands have. One side of the beach has large beds of largely dead staghorn coral, although you can find patches that are alive and beautiful. The real attraction is the fish, which are plentiful and in one meter of crystal clear water. Our guide had neglected to tell us, but we guessed that the ball of plain white rice included with our lunch was for feeding the fish. You've got to be careful, as some fish are territorial and will come up threateningly in your face while you're snorkeling. They won't do much more if you look at them face-to-face, but if you let them out of your field out of vision they may take nips at your legs. Don't worry; they're more a nuisance than a threat, although the one the got me drew blood. The ones in Thailand were worse.
	Our third stop assured me that all the world's coral is not dead yet. Our guide told us the site was called the Cemetery or Paradise, and interesting combination. We thought it was paradise with mountains of beautiful coral teaming with fish. I took my son Casey by the hand and we swam around in circles, enjoying the shimmering views again and again. Our last stop was called Soft Coral Arch, which you can just make out at top center of this picture. It's much bigger under the water. There are lots of natural arches where the limestone of the islands has been eroded away by the sea. This one reminded me of some of the wall dives I had done, with soft corals and also large fans growing from the sides under the arch. Around the boat were more beautiful schools of fish.
On Friday of our stay I went diving with Neco Marine. One good thing about a dive tour is that you can see the Rock Islands again. Palau is, like all ocean islands, a mountaintop, but one with sheer sides, or drop offs. Therefore, a lot of the dives are wall dives, and both of the dives I did were. The coral was alive but not exactly lush, with a lot of beautiful soft corals. At the ends of the dives, on flats about 40 feet down, most of the coral was dead again, but there were sharks, turtles, wrasses, and groupers. At the end of the day as a bonus, they took us to the famous Jellyfish Lake, a saltwater lake that's home to literally millions of stingless jellyfish, which was quite a sight. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it, though.
	Another day during our stay we drove down to Icebox Park for another picnic. My 1992 copy of The Lonely Planet Micronesia mentions that the snorkeling isn't bad there, so I decided to give it a try. What I found was that the snorkeling was actually surprisingly good, much better than anything I'd seen on the snorkeling tour I'd paid for three months before in Cozumel! Not only was most of the coral still alive, but on the retaining wall on the west side of the park, the Micronesian Mariculture Demonstration Center side, you can see some lovely soft corals. On another day at PPR, we confirmed that the snorkeling is quite good right off the beach. Even if you're not staying there, it's possible to use their beach, although they may charge you (they didn't us). PPR has several (I heard 13) large clams in shallow water. And when the tide goes out, they're in very shallow water, as you can see here.
One day we drove a car as far north as we could on Babeldaob island. Another day we didn't rent a car or take a tour at all; we just walked across Koror and got to know it close up. I put these together on the next page.