I was absent from Word Press but there are so many things that I wanted to post.
Sorry, I was too tired. hahaha
I took days off from 31 January – 5 February 2020 to go to Palau for diving.
I haven’t dived for a while so surely I was excited.
Unfortunately, the direct flight between Narita and Palau by Delta is no longer in service.
We took United to Guam and change flight.
I didn’t know it was preferred to obtain ESTA (electric VISA for the US) for transit at Guam.
We need to go through immigration to exit and re-enter at Guam.
I busily registered myself but I received a notice that it will take two days to process it.
I needed the internet access and rushed to the gate.
Hoping application would be processed by the time we reached to Guam.
I continued to register for others till losing internet connection before departure.
My seat was facing back so I could have a clear view of airplanes heading for runway
And taking off.
I purchased inflight internet access for an hour to complete registration for ESTA for friends.
I’ve done what we could do at that time.
I had Loco Moco for inflight lunch.
I thought the way serving lemon tea is cute.
Now landing to Guam.
Unfortunately, ESTA wasn’t approved by the time we landed.
However, we were informed by a flight attendant that we could queue at the line for ESTA holder for transit.
We exited and re-entered.
We had good four hours to connecting flight.
We chatted over drinks and light snacks.
United’s flight video is collaborated with Star Wars!!!
This might be showing at previous flight but I was too busy registering ESTA so I’m might have missed it. hahaha
I had sandwich for inflight meal.
It looks simple yet nice.
The person next to me placed her arm on my inflight monitor controller so I could not view anything.
When I managed to press it while she moved her arm but later she placed her arm to change the channel. Sigh
She was watching Japanese movie with English subtitle so I watched her screen.
It was less than 2 hour flight but I felt it longer…
I didn’t know that Palau is stop over for this flight and this continued to Manila.
I had to walk over two passengers to exit. Ahhhhh
Finally, we arrived at Palau and the Penthouse Hotel in Koror.
The internet connection is superb and WCTC shopping center is nicely located in few minutes walk away.
The hotel provides blue beach towel at the counter.
The next day we had a breakfast at the hotel restaurant.
For the next day, we bought breakfast at the supermarket at WCTC such as anpan (red bean bread), yogurt and orange juice for breakfast.
We departed for diving shop, Cruse Control.
Nice staffs looked after us.
I decided to take a license for NITROX this time.
We came to Palau in early February, especially new moon for spawning season for Tsunodashiuo (Moorish Idols).
If we are lucky we could see over few hundreds even thousand Moorish Idols in a group.
We dived mainly at Blue Corner where we can expect many various fish and of course Moorish Idols.
To my surprise there are many sharks swimming under a group of Moorish Idols.
I didn’t know sharks are not good at hunting.
Therefore, a shark targets Moorish Idols when they become weak at the spawning season.
Unfortunately; they swim deeper than us and light won’t reach them so it’s not clear on the photo.
However, these shadows indicate sharks and you would know there are MANY.
We were lucky that we managed to watch Moorish Idols at most of our dives.
We also watched other fish.
Can you find a fish?
And at the German Channel, we also caught Mantas!
I even watched Manta Train!
However, I noticed there is limited capacity for one post.
I will post the movie of Manta Train on the different post.
Sayonara Koror, Sayonara Moorish Idols!
These are lunch that I had on the boat.
And at the shop.
After 14 dives over 3.5 days, I joined a half day trip to Shell Island and Jelly Fish Park for snorkeling which is operated by Antelope.
Shell Island and also called Inoki Island.
Japanese retired Professional wrestler, Inoki has a property here.
It’s Shell Island because there are Shakogai (Giant Clams).
And some fish
The next is the major destination… heading for Jelly Fish Park!!!!
When I visited Palau in 2017, Jelly Fish Park was closed because of death of Jelly Fish due to global warming.
It was so much fun!
There are so many of jelly fish and these are harmless to touch!
Every night, we had nice food such as Thai, Indian and Sushi for supper.
On the last night, we and staffs of diving shop gathered to have a party at Italian restaurant.
Our departure flight was at 3:35 am, I slept through the returned flights.
I remember having breakfast only. hahaha
sonokotchi 