After much umming and aahing we decided to go to Palau and Yapo for Simons 40th Birthday. We made some initial enqueries with a local specialty travel agent, but they weren’t that helpful as it was too far in advance to get proper information on flights and they aren’t able to book the Siren. SO we waited a bit and then booke the Palau Siren with Worldwide Dive and Sail. All done through email and Pay Pal. Their people were very helpfull and patient. We then booked the flights ourselves and organised as package deal on Yap.
GETTING THERE:
- Christchurch to Sydney (Yuk – we hate having to get off the plane to go through customs for no reason before getting back on the same plane)
- 8 hr stop in Taipei (Taiwan) where we had free showers.
- Themed departure gates
- Helped out a student by doing a whole interview/questionnaire on airports
- Short 3.5 hr flight from Taipei to Palau. Freezing cold on the plane. Mostly asians on the plane. Flight attendants taking naps in the back as the plane wasn’t very full.
- Immigration at Koror Palau was PAINFULLY slow. Well over and hour in the queue.
THE SIREN:
- Fantastic! Nice accommodation, great food, friendly staff, excellent diving.
- Wake up, have snack, go diving, have breakfast, go diving,have lunch, go diving, have snack, go diving, have dinner, go to sleep
- Did our Nitrox certification on board
THE DIVING
- Simon went night diving on the first night
- Lots of sharks
- Mantas at German Wall
- German Channel was one of our favourites
- So much life at Blue Corner
- Chandelier cavern on the last day. V super nervous, but it was actually pretty cool
- Jellyfish lake was definately the highligh
- Soo much video editing for Simon to do
- Lost Go Pro near the end
PALAU
- We rented a car and drove around for a day before our flight to Yap
- Right hand drive cars on the righ side of the road was kinda weird
- Very laid back place
- Pretty expensive
- Got to go check out the their whitehouse and stand in the presidents parking spot
- Nice drone footage
- Tiny island can drive around it in a couple of hours
