Tuesday 31 May 2016

1st June 2016 - diving Palau - German Channel - Dexter's Wall -mishaps

Wednesday 1st June 2016

Pretty Rock Islands

Today we are setting off for a bit of a trip for a few days, to the Rock islands.  We have a ten day permit (everything is very expensive here…) so we should make use of it.  Also we should see a bit more of beautiful Palau before we leave forever.

Yesterday’s diving had its  good moments and its bad moments…

 Briefing time - Sergi
We had a very nice dive master, Sergi (from Barcelona,) plus Yokosuma (Japan) who was bright and cheery company on the boat.  Our fellow divers were all form the US, all very pleasant and easy company.  So what went wrong…well, pride goes before a fall…Just the day before I had been boasting about my fabulous (BARGAIN!) dive equipment.  Well…we had only just got into the water for our first dive (German Channel,) when bubble BUBBLE…a weird amount of bubbles all around my head – WHAT had I done wrong??  I hadn’t even started to descend, so all was well.  But…my BCD (diving vest; everything is attached to this – hoses, tank etc) is kaput; one of the hose attachment is broken and it was leaking air happily into the atmosphere.  So good this didn’t happen when I was at the bottom of the sea…

Yokosuma at rest
I had to go back to the boat and wait for the others while they did their dive along the channel.  Fortunately, it was very nice around the boat.  I snorkelled happily around in big circles on the shallow reef under the watchful eye of our captain, RD, with a big fat fender roped to my waist so he could see me at all times.


After lunch, and after a very happy time with a playful pod of dolphins, we moved on (not very far) to Dexter’s Wall.  Kindly RD had borrowed a spare BCD from a nearby dive boat belonging to a Korean company, so I was able to take he plunge with the others.  It was all very lovely.  Big schools of snapper, lots of calm turtles, tiny nudibranchs.

So what ELSE went wrong??  Well…we had hired dive computers – they were horrified at Sam’s Tours that we didn’t own computers; apparently it is VERY bad to dive without.  So we hired big fat watch-type arrangements.  I couldn’t make head nor tail of mine, on this dive. It kept saying 99 – what on earth did this mean?? I just ignored it and dived as I usually do, keeping an eye on the depth metre and the air monitor, and all was well. 



Until it was unpacking time on shore and  - WHERE was my computer?  Vanished…I was sure it must be in the bag with the spare BCD, which we had returned to the other dive boat.  But the office people rang and no…it is just gone gone gone.  So…I have to pay $250 to replace it.  (SOB!!)

This could be a much worse story, I know, and I did enjoy my morning swim, my afternoon dive, the delicious lunch and the beautiful scenery.

We were so tired that we couldn’t even think of cooking, although we did trudge along to the local shop to get a few provisions for the next few days.  We just went and delivered them to the boat, got changed, and went to Carp for dinner, just a few hundred metres up the road. 

Nico and  Brittany
We had great company – Brittany and Nico, from Los Angeles, who had been on our diveboat, had followed our recommendation and were sitting at a big table, ready to order.  Poor things; I made them talk about the upcoming US elections… No Americans I have met thus far are happy to talk about Donald Trump…And nobody thus far can explain the Trump Phenomenon to me.  Our friend Tom, now at Ocean View, says, sadly, that the Trump ascendancy is a sign that the US is in decline…


We won’t be in internet range for a few days; I will try to take pretty photos of pretty fish etc.

Sunday 29 May 2016

30th May 2016 - elusive mandarin fish

Monday 30th May 2016

What I want to see, when I am swimming alongside the jetty, GoPro in hand, is…

Thans for the image, Google!
Mandarin fish!  Apparently they live along the rock wall, very happily, mating in the late afternoon light.  So far…not a single sighting.  They are very small - Google assures me they only grow to 6cm.  Big or small, I don’t care, I just want to see one!

I do see very big giant clams, however.  They are not particularly photogenic, these big ones, in their camouflage colours.

And my GoPro techhiques are not yet very good...
I also managed to take a strange selfie…I need help with my GoPro techniques!

This was supposed to be a photo of a very pretty small iridescent blue clam!!
Tomorrow we are going for two more dives, not sure where, somewhere in the Rock Islands no doubt!



29th May 2016 - up the mast again - new halyard

Sunday 29th May 2016

Hot yacht club dog
Today wasn’t a day of adventure and diving.  It began with a few hours of very hard work…

We got up at dawn, to avoid the fierce sun – yes it is sunny again; the heavy rain has stopped, as suddenly as it started.

#2 up the mast
And then it was time to hoick Pete up the mast again.  My least favourite job. It is now 5pm and the adrenaline is still coursing through my veins…Pete had to work out how to get the new halyard threaded though into the system on the mast.  He hadn’t managed two days ago and it all seemed impossible.  But he never ever gives up…

So there he was, up the mast, calling instructions down to me.  Mainly PULL!!!  And then STOP!!!  Pulling the thin line attached to the halyard through the system was very hard. It hurt my hands, and required more strength than I really have.  It was not fun.  Added to this, we had trouble hearing each other up and down the mast so we had to bellow, like buffalo in the swamp.

Moby Duck - great name for a  boat from Raratonga!
I felt very sorry for the young chaps who arrived last night, in a lovely jaunty red boat, and who were probably hoping to have a nice sleep-in in the gentle waters of this lovely bay.  They would have heard Pete’s stentorian instructions and me, roaring back at him, I AM TRYING.  Or I CAN’T.  Or I AM!!!

This went on for nearly three hours…

The rest of the day…I have been swimming and lying on the new cushions on the deck, in any bit of shade I can find.  And Pete has been dozing, on and off, and fending off horrendously painful cramps in his legs.

But some good things – I saw my turtle friend again.  Ands last night it came right up near the boat and popped its head out to take a look, as the sun was setting.  Is it the same turtle…or is there more than one in the bay??  Hard to say…they do look very alike.


I have just found a photo I took of our new diving friend, Kerry, from Brisbane.  We met her in the bar the night before our dives; she was very pleased with herself because she had done her 400th dive that day.  Apparently when you reach a 00 number you have to do…a nude dive… She said NO!!  A bikini dive was the best she could manage.  I can’t imagine I will ever reach 100, especially as most of the dives I have done haven’t been documented through PADI, but if ever I do…there will be NO nude dive!! 


Kerry was very happy to meet us because she had noticed 2XS one morning, with HOBART on the stern.  She lived in Hobart for twelve years, and went to school at Friends.  We were very happy to meet her too!  She told all of her dive buddies about our bargain purchase of diving equipment from Diana last week.  Nobody could believe what a great bargain Pete had found, dropped into our laps.  There is an advertisement on the yacht club notice board for a similar lot of equipment for $650!!  Pete paid just over $200, and Diana included a nitrox tank and new flippers for good measure.  We were in the right place at the right time!  Diana is in Bali now, at a retreat.  I have let her know that her beloved equipment has gone to a very good home so…she is happy too!