Palau September 2024

Wow Palau!!! This was a fantastic trip made by the incredible diving mixed with the great group and crew of the Palau Siren.

Palau is famous for incredible diving, but our group was definitely blown away with the diving. We were there specifically for the Bumphead Parrotfish spawning which occurs around dawn at Full Moon in September.

We were not disappointed by the Spawning! Entering the water just before dawn we swam into the deeper water towards the sunrise and were greeted by tens of thousands of the Bumphead Parrotfish in a wall. This many fish weighing up to 100lbs is an incredible sighting alone. Then the behavior was mesmerizing as they would seem to swim around aimlessly for a few mins then a group would dart towards the surface and spawn all together. The light made photos hard, but we got lots anyway. Later in the dives attracted by the activity some large bull sharks came in to join the fun which was fun in the low light. We were lead on these dives by a researcher Richard who explained what was happening and why as we went along. 

He also lead the group for a Blackwater dive looking for the larval forms of certain marine life. This dive was not for everyone but those of us photographers loved it.  

Other fantastic dives were with Manta Rays in the German Channel, seeing tons of grey reefs cruising off of Blue Corner, diving the IJN fuel tanker and Peleliu End.

A somber but fantastic dive was Orange Beach off of Peleliu where the Marines landed in 1944 and was the start of the Pacific’s most bloody battle. Seeing the wrecks of landing craft as well as lots of other military debris was sobering but the marine life was flourishing on top of it.  The reef was full of turtles and fish.

Our last dive was at Chandelier cave in the harbor. This shallow cave was full of stalactites and stalagmites and had 4 open air sections where we could surface. The stunning cave was only eclipsed by the fact that on a coral head outside lived a family of Mandarin Fish. These incredibly rare and skittish fish are always difficult to shoot during the day. Here though they seemed to be out sunbathing and posing for images.

Overall Palau was an amazing sea of beautiful healthy corals and seems to have been saved from some of the widespread bleaching as well as the trawler fishing. It was a great trip and we will go back! If only it was closer…