“Not for me thanks matey” I told them.

They said the reason they did that was there were no available hotel rooms in Guam to put us up for the night. Sensing a deal I asked them if I could get the room would they put us on the next direct flight to Hawaii the following morning.

“Sure if you can get the room then we will cover it”.

One call to Amex and I had a choice of two hotels, both of which had just told United they were full. I booked the room, without mentioning the price to them of course, and they agreed to pay. Then the guy I was dealing with went home and left me with Jon who just asked me if the supervisor had cleared all the costs, and when I told him he had, he gave me a voucher for $550 and also $60 in transport fees for the trip to and from the airport. He couldn’t have been nicer or more pleasant, as were all the staff we dealt with. They grabbed our bags, escorted us through customs and called the shuttle bus for us, and now I’m sitting in the Hyatt Regency Club room looking out over the beach. If we had flown American Airlines I would be asleep under the row of plastic chairs in the departure lounge of the airport!

View from the Club floor of The Hyatt Regency in Guam

So lessons to be learned:

I tried really hard to find a different way to shoot the jellies as I have seen many photos from this lake over the last few years and it’s hard to be original but I got a couple of shots I’m very happy with.

We spent a couple of dives today shooting fish portraits at Blue Corner as the current was changing when we dropped in and the fish are so tame that you can approach very closely.

This white tip was cruising the wall and must have been thinking happy thoughts as he didn’t see me until I pressed the trigger and the strobes woke him up with a start.

We had Blue Corner all to ourselves again, and one of the napoleon wrasse came right up close to us. He sat on my dome port and posed for photos, obviously expecting food as some of the dive guides are known to feed them. He then spent fifteen minutes bothering Jenny Huang, putting his face right up into hers and nudging her constantly. We decided to call him “Tony” as he likes to annoy people, especially females, and won’t be put off until he is fed.

We dived Ulung Cliffs again today and went further along the reef this time towards the channel, and the hard coral garden that blew me away yesterday just carried on and on. It would be amazing to see it with a strong current to clear away the suspended particles that cause a bit of backscatter. The second dive was at German Channel and we sat in the gloom until a manta showed up and cruised past slowly. Once up in the shallows the water was much clearer and we came across a ball of scad being harassed by three reef sharks. We got right up close to the ball and the sharks backed off a little until they were sure we meant them no harm, and then came back to make attacking runs through the ball right in front of us.

I love this place. It really is high action diving every dive.

Straight on to Blue Corner, which we had totally to ourselves for the first dive; we hooked in and watched the sharks and midnight snapper cruising right in front of us. It’s a little like fish TV. Hook in to a rock, fill the BCD with air so you float right above the drop off, settle down and enjoy. One point to remember is to reverse the procedure exactly when leaving, as releasing the hook before dumping your air will result in a fast flight to the surface, tumbling in the current. Kind of like a balloon when you let go of the end without tying a knot.

Third dive was at New Drop Off and we arrived as the current was slack but after hooking in it built and built and built. Soon it was howling; a real mask ripper. I could barely raise my camera and when I did my strobes got wrapped backwards around my neck. Ten or so grey reefs and a couple of white tips cruised the drop off, the female grey reefs all had fresh wounds to their sides where the males had bitten them during mating.

We went straight round to Blue Corner, which is the signature dive in Palau, and even though the light was poor and there wasn’t much current running, this site was looking good. I saw more sharks on that one dive than I saw the whole month we were in Komodo in Indonesia. Sure we were mainly muck diving there, so that’s why there were no sharks, but still, it’s an impressive sounding statistic which just goes to show you should never believe anything you read. Anyway I digress. There are a great number of Japanese divers in Palau and although Tony said it wasn’t busy compared to the times he has dived there before, Blue Corner looked like Shibuya Crossing to me, with almost as many divers as fish. Of course I’m exaggerating again but I’ll get a shot of it tomorrow to give you an idea. We hooked into the rocks and watched the barracuda swirl overhead and the grey reefs patrol the wall below. I can’t wait to see this site in the sunshine.

One advantage of there being loads of divers is that the fish are very tame. There are two resident napoleon wrasse that came very close to inspect every diver that swam along the wall, and a large school of soldierfish that allowed me to get my dome port within six inches of them which is very unusual.

The ride home was done in pouring rain that whipped into the boat and stung any piece of stray flesh exposed to the elements. I know it’s the tropical Pacific but it was cold and wet and a little miserable. We are all desperately hoping for sun tomorrow.