Palau

To get to Palau from the US you go through Hawaii, Guam, and Yap and eventually arrive in Palau about 2 am local time.  We had a full day in Yap before we caught the 1 am flight to Palau so we were all falling asleep even before we boarded the 45 minute flight.   As we arrived over Palau all we could see were city lights, yes compared to Yap everything is a city.  I could tell right away that Palau was much more populated than Yap.  We arrived tired and crabby to a large open air lobby at the Sea Passion Hotel and had a bit of a bumpy check in with unorganized staff and a broken air conditioner in the room.  After a few hours of sleep everything was all better.  The Sea Passion has one of the most scenic swimming lagoons I have ever seen; the perfect crescent shape, surrounded by perfectly shaped palm trees, water that is 10 different shades of blue/green and a white sugar sand beach.  Sadly I never once swam in that lagoon.  After a two hour round trip boat ride to the dive sites and a full day of diving I was ready for a shower and  dry clothes when we got back to the hotel.

Often when I travel to a new location I find myself saying, “This looks like….” But that was not the case with Palau.  Granted there are a lot of places on this globe I have never seen but, so far, no place looks like Palau!  Most Pacific Islands are either one huge mountain volcano covered in lush vegetation, an atoll, or an ancient flat coral reef that looks like it will be swamped with one good wave.  To me, what set Palau apart is how there are thousands of tiny little dot islands so close together.  Like God tossed a hand full of huge limestone pebbles into the ocean and said, “Let there be Palau.”  The larger islands are not just one big mountain, like Fiji, they look as if some of the pebbles all bunched together and grew vegetation.  The small islands are 50 to over 100 feet tall, have really steep sides covered in tropical vegetation, and most don’t have any beach.  The sides plunge straight into the water where the sea has eroded a perfect undercut making each little island look like a cartoon mushroom.  It is hard to describe.  I never got tired of inspecting each island as we flew passed in the dive boat on the way to and from the dive sites:  looking at its shape, looking to see how far the sea has cut into the base, looking at the different trees, none of which were palm trees unless there was a sandy beach.  There are very few islands with a sandy beach.

Since the hotel was just around the corner by boat, our dive master picked us up every morning in the boat, took us straight back to the hotel in the afternoon and we left all our gear on the boat.  It was great not to have to wash gear every day and schlep it back and forth to the boat!!  A girl could get spoiled!!

Palau is a lot more populated than I expected and it is full of people from other places.  Everyone I met was from somewhere else; India, Philippians, China, Japan, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and any other place you can think of.  There is a large population of young US expats and I am not sure why; some were doing the bum around the world thing, some were working and I think some were going to school.  It looks like there is a lot to see and do in Palau.  The main island of Koror was full of resorts, shopping and restaurants.  We never made it up north the largest main island where the capital city of Melekeok is located.  It would be good to have a car and be able to take a day or two and just explore the island.  I would think it would be pretty easy to spend a couple of weeks just in Palau exploring the area and diving.

A Once in a Lifetime Trip

         
That is a once in a lifetime trip!! 

What does this statement mean to you? 

Is it a trip to a location so remote, exotic, exciting and expensive that you only take one trip of that type during your whole lifetime?  OR could it mean you go to that remote, exotic, exciting, expensive location only once because there are so many other remote, exotic, exciting, expensive trips to take? 

Maybe it's not remote.  Maybe it's not exotic to some people.  Maybe it's not expensive at all.  It only has to be a place you have dreamed about going. 

Where do you want to go on your once in a lifetime trip(s)?

Travel On

Yap – The Land of Stone Money

Traditional Dress

Yap, it is not the sound a small annoying dog makes; it is an island in the southwest Pacific.  Located just over 800 miles due east of the Philippine Islands, Yap is one four island states that make up the Federated States of Micronesia.  Spread out over one million square miles of ocean these small islands total only 271 square miles of land.  Getting here is not easy but well worth it.  The trip started in Seattle with an afternoon flight to LAX where I met up with my Helena Scuba friends.  We stayed overnight and caught an early flight to Honolulu.  After a short layover we boarded a 7.5 hour flight to Guam.  While in Guam we had enough time to take a short jaunt out of the airport to walk along the beach at Tumon Bay.  Back at the airport we caught a 3 hour flight to Yap arriving just after 1 am local time.  It was a 26 hour trip from LA!

As we came out of customs we were greeted by a lady dressed in a lava lava (traditional colorful grass skirt) and something like a lei that is woven from thick strips of palm leaves with small red flowers woven in.  She was topless but I did not realize that until later because the lei covered her very well.  She gave each of us a smaller version of her lei as we came out of customs.   Just like most tropical airports this one was completely open to the warm humid night air.

We were on Yap to scuba dive which I have already written about but we also discovered a very rich and traditional culture.  Part of the joy of travel is the research you do ahead of time but I have to admit I did absolutely no research on Yap before this trip.  In my mind, Yap was just a minor stop to see the Manta Rays so I spent my time reading about Palau. 

Men's House

I underestimated Yap!!  Populated well before the birth of Christ by sailors from Indonesia and the Philippines the Yapese have always been known for their great navigation skills.  When you live in a place that is less than .03% land and GPS has not been invented yet, you better know how to navigate by reading the sea, clouds and stars.  While the modern world has invaded Yap with mini-marts, cell phones and Wi-Fi many people still live a very traditional life.  The social structure is a caste system with a strict social rank and each area is led by a chief.  The men never change their social rank but women can change by marriage.  They still meet in community houses built out of palm leaves, coconut rope, tree trunks, and bamboo with low eves to keep out the sun but open sides to allow air flow.  They are very cool inside on a hot day.  Built the same, but a bit smaller is the “men’s house” where men hold meetings and just gather to get away.  Much like a man cave today, only no electricity for the big screen TV. 

Stone Money Bank

Their financial system historically consisted of various sizes of stone money that was carved from Palau and brought back to the island.  Even today local people still own stone money and use it to buy land and homes.  When you think of stone money, you think of small coin size pieces carved from stone, right?  Well no, their stone money ranges from small sizes like that to very large round stones taller than a man with a hole in the middle.  We visited a stone money “bank.”  It was a path lined with all sizes of round wheel-like stones each with a hole in the middle used to carry them back to the island.  The money never moves but does change ownership.  Its value comes in the history of the stone and how it was carved.  A small stone, carved by hand with a giant clam shell and brought over long ago on a wooden canoe is more valuable than a much larger stone carved with more modern metal tools and brought over on a large ship.  When the stone changes hands the current owner must pass down the history of the stone to the new owner.  A long rich history adds value to the stone. 

Betel Nut and Pepper Leaf

Something very unique to Yap and almost nowhere else is the chewing of Betel Nut.  This is an addiction that is much like smoking, chewing tobacco or habitual coffee drinking here in the states.  I don’t remember meeting one Yapese adult that did not chew Betel Nut.  The Betel Nut grows on a palm like tree; they pick a green nut, crack it in half, put lime inside (not the fruit, but ground up limestone) and wrap the whole thing in a pepper leaf.  Put it in the back of the mouth and slowly chew, spitting out the extra juice.  Doing this causes the juices to become a bright red color and if you did not know any better you might think a chewer was bleeding in the mouth.  The red color stains the teeth and anything else it is spat upon.  In many stores there are no spitting signs and there are spitting cans outside to keep it from staining the sidewalk.  Our tour guide extraordinaire, Theo, sat us down in the men’s house, showed us the process and let us try it. I tried it and it gave me a small head rush like a first cigarette but I did not chew too long.  Your dentist would not be very happy with you if you chewed Betel Nut on a regular basis, it is not easy on the teeth.

WWII Wreck

Yap did not become entangled in WWII until late, April 1944, when the Japanese build a runway so the Americans started bombing it.  I asked what the local people did during that time and was told some left to live with family in other areas and some stayed trying to avoid the dangerous action.  In that short time it saw its share of WWII action and there are still many war relics scattered over the island and in the surrounding sea.  There are still 120 American men listed as MIA on Yap.  You might ask, why, how is that possible?  I did.  But with the depth of the sea, the steep ocean shelf and the extremely dense jungle, it is very possible.  There are planes that went down over Yap that have never been found and one that was discovered as recently as 2006. 

I have a lot of respect for the Yap people they seem to have done a great job at adopting the modern conveniences of life without losing their rich heritage.   Yap is a place I would like to return to; for great diving and to experience more of the daily life of the local people!

Diving Yap

 The Manta Ray Bay Hotel picked us up and we checked in by 2 AM.  My trusty world diving buddy and travel companion, Pat, and I were given the “Seahorse Room.”  There was a seahorse carved into the door, seahorses on the bedspreads, seahorse photos on the wall, a seahorse shower curtain and last but not least a seahorse carved into the Betel nut on the key chain.  The only thing missing was a seahorse in a salt water aquarium.  Every room in the hotel had a different sea creature theme; very creative!! 

The diving in Yap is known mostly for the Manta Ray cleaning stations and the Mandarin Fish dive.  Since Yap is located pretty much in the middle of nowhere Pacific Ocean it is the perfect place to see larger pelagic ocean species who are attracted to the 24 hour buffet of the coral reef.  Manta Rays come here for a quick spa treatment courtesy of various cleaner wrasses before they hit the singles bar to find love.  This provides divers with an almost guaranteed sighting of these huge, majestic, elegant creatures who seem to effortlessly fly though the water.  

The boat ties off to a buoy a few hundred yards from a very shallow coral reef.  Divers roll in and go straight down to 40 feet or so, our goal is not to scare away the rays who are already cruising the shallow cleaning station.  We circle around this shallow area making sure to stay below the lip of the plateau and we spread out just barely peaking over the top of the coral reef.  We just “sit” there in one place as still as possible and wait for the show to begin.  Pretty soon there is one big manta ray coming straight for me, he veers off and goes around for another pass.  Then there are two, three and even more at times.  Sometimes they sneak up behind you, the diver next to you starts to point and just as you start to turn your head to see what they are pointing at, this huge white underbelly buzzes your head and starts the circular dance of the cleaning station. 

At times there are no rays, so we just wait.  Since we have been sitting there relatively still the smaller fish start to get use to your presence and they will come pretty close.  This is the perfect time to get photos of small fish that are normally too skittish to let you take their photo.  I think the cleaning station is the best of both worlds; huge manta rays and small guys, all in one stop.

The Mandarin Fish is something completely unique to a small part of the west and south Pacific.  It is a small fish, about 1 to 2 inches long that is strikingly colorful.  I had only seen them in the fish id books and looked forward to this special dive.  Mandarin Fish live in and among shallow coral reefs in protected lagoons.  They feed and mate in a very small territory and the best time to see them is at dusk when they become more active and come out to mate.  The divers are stationed along an area of finger coral and we wait…and wait….and wait.  Eventually you see a bit of color move way down low in the coral, stay still and they come higher and higher, eating their way up the coral finger.  

Photo by Mindy Coplin

Pretty soon a much larger Mandarin Fish struts by and beckons the little lady out to mate.  They meet belly to belly and in a flash they dart up a foot or so release sperm and egg and in an instant they are apart and she goes back to foraging along the coral and he struts off to find the next female.  In Yap this is a special dive that you pay extra for so we were amused to find the same fish living among the trash and anemic coral along cement wall in the boat basin of Sam’s Tours in Palau.

Since Yap is located hundreds of miles from anywhere they also have wonderful walls just outside the barrier reef that drop into the abyss and are covered with every kind of life you can think of.  On one side is a vertical wall covered with sea life while on the other side and below is nothing but deep blue sea!!  Keep an eye out on the deep blue every now and then because you just never know who will silently swim by while you are too busy looking at a ¼ inch nudibranch.