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Palau


Dan H

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Alii! Hello from the future.

I wanted to upload some pictures to ARC but the interwebs here on Palau are about the equivalent of dial up and it seems to go in and out frequently. However we have been able to get some pictures uploaded to Facebook - I'm guessing they probably have servers on this side of the planet so it's more responsive.

So if you're bored and want to browse our Facebook album for now, here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10103667027594222&type=3

We've been trying to upload each day but there are more pictures than we can get uploaded given how long each takes... Plus I will upload some video once we're stateside.

So far we've been on 6 dives and have 2 more tomorrow. We've been to "big drop off", "blue corner", "new drop off", "German Channel", "grasslands", and "Ulong channel". They've all been drift dives, and sometimes the current has been pretty strong. Today at the Ulong channel the current was strong enough that going against it was basically impossible.

We've seen huge acros, montis, clams, sharks, eels, massive schools of fish, tuna, leathers, sea turtles, but sadly no manta rays.

We've also been to Jellyfish Lake and it was simply amazing! (If you haven't heard of it, do yourself a favor and Google it) The snorkeling has also been fantastic! Giant clams literally bigger than people are directly in front of the resort.

Tuesday we get to move to the over water bungalow on so that should be sweet. Plus we're going to Peleliu so we get to see some amazing WWII history.

Hope you enjoy the pictures for now.

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Yeah the jellyfish in jellyfish Lake do not sting. They are super soft and feel like little gelatin blobs. It was a surreal experience.

Well we finished our last scheduled day of diving. Got to see more cool life, including an octopus, firefish, and more massive corals. It seems like everything is just bigger in scale here. I can't tell you how many times I saw corals and just wished I could just snip off a frag. :)

We're off to Peleliu tomorrow, and we're considering doing one more day of diving...

In the meantime we're dealing with a reservation screw up. Apparently the over water bungalow was double booked for part of the time and they decided to bump us. So now we only have it for 2 days instead of 5. Obviously we're kinda POed about this and are arguing with the management about how this can happen considering we made our reservation over 6 months ago and paid upfront...

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Nice! Makes me want to schedule another dive trip.

That stinks about the hotel screw up. My wife worked in hotels before we got married and unfortunately hotels regularly overbook to compensate for cancellations and a way to hopefully remain near occupancy despite cancellations. On rare occurrences no one will cancel and leave someone left out (whoever pays the cheapest rate usually). Just the nature of the travel industry. At least you should have a cheaper hotel bill from it!

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Yeah, so they completely admitted they screwed up. The manager, who is Japanese and the hotel which is owned by the Japanese, came and talked to us late last night and profusely apologized and claimed full responsibility. He even said "I am shamed". Woah.

They knocked all of our stay down to the lowest rate, and put us in the suite for 2 nights, then we get the bungalow, then back to the suite for the last night. Plus he's offering to give us the "dinner on the ocean" for free which is a 7 course meal prepared by a private chef in a gazebo that's at the end of the dock.

I still bummed we won't get the bungalow for more than 2 days but still, this suite is pretty ridiculous so I guess it'll do. :)

Went to Peleliu today. Was quite an odd experience. We were the only Americans out of 18 people, the rest were Japanese. So the cool part is we got our own personal guide and minivan instead of the bus. It was very surreal to see where such a bloody battle was fought.

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