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From above the islands of Palau look like jungle worms wiggeling through the shallow tropical water. In fact, Wikipedia says, that the islands are the peaks of a giant underwater mountain range.
After two days of travelling we finally arrived on Carp Island. A small island (1km from side to side), owned by a palauan family, in the very south of the Rock Islands. It is one of the very few Rock Islands which you can visit. All the other Islands are uninhabited and are part of a big nature preserve. Some parts of the Rock Islands are even entirely closed for public. This is due to the inimitable marine wildlife, especially the Jelly Fish lakes which are very important to many research teams.
On Carp Island we lived in a little bungalow right next to the islands jungle. The simple hotel was the only thing on the island. When we arrived on the island we were the only guests for about a week, so everything was very quiet and calm.
Our Island from above. It looks a little bit like a starfish. Photo by Ariane
We went kayaking around the islands to some small beaches on the islands right next to our island. It was just incredible. You could kayak alongside the bank and look directly into the jungle. There were a lot of tropical birds with very long white tails and carnivoral plants. We went snorkeling at one beach we found near the dive site turtle cove
. It's amazing when you snorkel over the reef top and suddenly the reef under you drops off into the deep blue.
It was a bit like in Monkey Island, the computer game, so I had (and still have) the plan to write a script for an adventure computer game set in the Rock Islands of Palau :-)
We had a great time exploring the centre of the island, with all the mangroves, caves, crabs, shell roads and poison trees.
German Channel, The Big Drop Off, Turtle Coveand the famous
Blue Corner! And I must say it was amazing. I've been diving before in Egypt and Bali (and Lake Constance ;-) ) and I've never seen so many big fish before! Nearly every dive we saw sharks, turtles and giant swarms of snappers or other fish.
Blue Corneris a reef peak at a place were there is a lot of water coming from very deep seas and flushing over the edge of a 18m deep reef top. On our day we had very strong current, so we had to use reef hooks to secure us from being flushed away. We went down to about 20m and waited until the current moved us against the reef. As soon as we saw the edge we pedaled hard to reach the best spot. Just before the edge I felt the strong current catching me and blowing me up! And that's the moment where you have to get out you hook and grab a coral. We were hanging there like James Bond hanging onto the wing of a flying plane! The reef hook helped us staying at that spot.
Some days later we went to dive the Blue Holes. And I must say, that for me, this place is as good as the Blue Corner!
On the reef top at a depth of around 7 meters there are several big holes going into the deep! We dived to the edge of one hole, deflated our jackets and jumped like some crazy base jumpers into the holes. It was amazing! It was a slow motion base jump! We went down the hole to a depth of around 30meters. When you look up you could see the light rays coming through the holes and drawing silhouettes of the fish. All the holes merged into one big cave which was open to the outside reef. We dived through a little window into the reef finished our dive.
This place really gives you the feeling of being weightless! You turn around and hover through holes and over edges like you're flying. Nice Image which shows a part of the holes.
There was just one creepy thing: On the bottom of the big cave there was a cross with a name on it. Some years ago, someone died while diving the holes.
It was not very easy to leave to island. It was very lonesome and calm, and that's something way to rare. All you could here was the noise coming from the jungle and the waves of the ocean. And sometimes the guys from the hotel switched on the power plant ;-)
