Palau

Koror

From July 15th to July 19th 2025

July 15th

We left Honolulu on the morning of the 14th, and flew 8 hours west to Guam. Once we landed in Guam, we had a 40 minute layover until our flight to Palau which was another 2 hours from there. We landed in the evening, so we didn’t get to see much of what we landed into (due to the darkness), but we went straight to bed and dreamed of what the island might look like in the morning. 

July 16th

Because of jet lag, we woke up around 4:30am. We didn’t have any real plans for the day, but last minute decided to get some dives in. After a delicious and fresh hotel breakfast buffet (freshly baked English muffins and croissants!) we left the hotel at 7:45 for Sam’s Dive Tours. We took off with our local Palauan boat driver, Lloyd, and our divemaster, Yuki, from the mountains near Hokkaido, Japan. 

Our first dive was on the inner reef where we saw a large grouper. The dive had many canopy reefs, we saw eels, the black and white banded sea snake, and plenty of fish.

We then went to the Milky Way, which was a lagoon type place with limestone mud below the water. Yuki dove down with her snorkel to grab some of the mineral rich mud below and brought it to the surface so we could rub it all over our bodies (absorb those nutrients!). We splashed back into the water to rub it all off after it dried and made our way to the Blue Corner. When we got to the channel to cross and make to the Blue Corner, we were advised that the weather was no good (too strong of current, too rough of waters) and that we would not be able to dive there that day. We opted for the wall just before the Blue Corner. This was an amazing spot where we saw one of the largest sharks we’ve ever seen, sea turtles, beautiful coral and sea life.

We stopped for lunch at a little beach island where others were also having their picnic. It was mostly Japanese and Chinese people on the island and we ate our bento boxes of teriyaki chicken, cole slaw, and white rice. 

We had enough equipment for a third dive, but Hailey was cold and we had only just landed the night before (it was already ambitious to go diving in the first place). We headed back to the hotel, warmed up in a hot bath, then went to dinner at 6pm. Hailey had a taro leaf & fresh fish soup + a cheese pizza. Max had the vegetarian cantonese style fried noodles.

After dinner we enjoyed seeing all the frogs come out at night, make their noise, and hop out of our way as we walked around the property. That night we slept like babies. 

July 17th

We woke up again in the morning around 5am. The weather did not look agreeable, so we were already planning and preparing for a day of not being able to visit The Blue Corner. We got picked up via boat from the hotel and made our way straight out to dive destination unknown. As we were about an hour into the boat ride out to our dive destination we crossed a beautiful yacht named the Black Pearl. Lloyd, our captain made a signal to the Black Pearl team, of which they signaled a big O above their heads. We assumed this to mean that the Blue Corner was open for divers - and indeed it was! 

We got our briefing in the lagoon nearby, and also suited up to be ready before reaching the outer reef and rougher waters. We hopped off the boat once we made it to the open ocean and descended down. Luckily the current was not too rough, so we were not being thrown around like our briefing had made it sound. 

Was it worth the hype? Yes. We must have seen 10 sharks, 6-7 sea turtles, plenty of fish and live action. All moving at a pretty quick pace. At one point I even thought we were going to see the sharks make one of their fish a meal. We did see a sea turtle and parrotfish both eating the same thing - but neither of us could distinguish what it once was. It was about the size of a coconut. 

After our exciting Blue Corner dive, we hopped off for another island lunch excursion. Hailey had the beef bulgogi and Max had a fried rice topped with egg and ground beef. 

We drove by the infamous arch on our way to the next dive site; the infamous Iro Maru, a WW2 Japanese oiler shipwreck that was taken down by a US Navy submarine torpedo on it’s bow on April 17th 1944. The ship was very impressive, down 120 feet, still standing upright, and 470 feet in length.

The final dive of the day was the Chandelier Cave, where we dove into the darkness with nothing but a torch light and made our way to the three different chambers within the cave. The cave had almost no marine life and had us the most sensory deprived of all the dives. It was quiet, still, no fish, dark, and empty. The best part of it was being able to swim back to the entrance of the cave with no torch lights on, just trusting our senses and drifting slowly towards the blue light where the cave entered to the sunlight. 

We got back to the hotel (after a slightly turbulent drop-off), showered, warmed up, rested, and then headed to dinner around 5pm. We decided to hike the nature trail on property which was only .5 miles long, but it was very wet and slippery. We passed by two different Japanese hideout tunnels from WW2 while on the trail. The lookout point from above was beautiful and then we made it down to dinner. Hailey had the taro leaf & fish soup again + the tuna poke (insanely delicious and fresh!). Max had the noodles again. 

June 18th

Our last full day on the island was a lazy one (thank goodness). We rested in the morning, went to the gym for a 60 minute cardio exercise around 8am, breakfast at 9, nap until noon, lunch at 12:15, wrote postcards and relaxed while the room got cleaned, got laundry done, then made it out to Elilias for dinner on the island. Hailey had the crab pasta and max had the beef bolognese. We indulged with the Basque cheesecake after our meal. Hailey was asleep by 8pm. 

June 19th

We woke up at 2:45am to leave the hotel by 3:15am to catch our 5am flight to Micronesia (a 3.5 hour duration).