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micronesia's moment
by Natasha Dragun
Published in the July-September 2012 issue.
It’s home to some of the world’s best dive sites, has starred in reality TV shows and features on countless postcards, yet few people could point it out on a map if asked. And that’s why the Republic of Palau is so alluring.
A quick poll around the Vacations & Travel office before my trip to Palau revealed that it could be in South America, sounds like it is part of the Philippines and, according to one colleague, is surely a place I’ve made up. Truth be told, the fact that few people know the country even exists is part of its appeal.
A cluster of islands in the West Pacific, around 2,000 kilometres north of Cape York at the tip of Australia, Palau sees just 80,000 visitors a year, most of them Japanese.
Settled by a melting pot of Europeans (the British, Spanish, Germans), this tiny island nation, like many of its neighbours in Micronesia, was officially passed to the Japanese in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles before being taken by the United States in 1944.
The Battle of Peleliu saw around 2,000 Americans dead or missing and more than 10,000 Japanese killed, and the remnants of the war are still scattered around the archipelago; divers explore sunken Navy ships and the carcasses of rusting B-24 Liberator bombers litter the land; calligraphy covers old Japanese bunkers and abandoned machine-gun nests littered with spidery sake bottles.
It’s hard to reconcile the country’s sad history with the incredible beauty that awaits – thumbing through my in-flight magazine as the plane glides over seemingly endless ocean towards the archipelago, I learn of mysterious lakes brimming with stingless jellyfish, lagoons where the water is so rich with limestone mud that it appears white, and hundreds of jungle-clad islets jutting from the water like immense floating emeralds.
For such a small country, Palau punches well above its weight when it comes to sustainable tourism.
In 2005, President Tommy E. Remengesau, Jr. instituted the Micronesia Challenge, a regional initiative – also joined by Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands – designed to conserve 30 percent of near-shore coastal waters and 20 percent of forest land by 2020.
Remengesau’s successor, President Johnson Toribiong, went on to create the world’s first shark sanctuary, so sure of the environmental benefits, he boldly suggested that the UN should follow suit and ban shark fishing worldwide.
That hasn’t happened yet, of course, although given the encouraging results in Palau, perhaps it should.
Within hours of touching down in Koror, Palau’s sleepy, sun-drenched capital, I meet a group of Japanese divers ready to strap on dive tanks – only they’re still in the hotel lobby. The excited gaggle of adventurers chat and smoke and sip tea as if they’re in shorts and t-shirts rather than full wetsuits, snorkels and swimming caps – one even has fins on. Later, as I plunge into the ocean myself, I begin to understand why they were so keen: such a wealth of swimming things churn around Palau that you’d think someone had spiked the waters with yohimbine.
You could spend years exploring the hundreds of dive sites across Palau’s archipelago. Indeed, setting out for a day’s diving, I meet a Swiss couple who have done just that. Both of them underwater photographers with more dives under their weight belts than Jacques Cousteau, the pair insists there’s something magical about the waters of Palau. Perhaps it’s the variety of marine life and the unimaginably good underwater visibility, and there’s no doubt the diversity of dive sites is a factor.
With help from local experts Fish ’n Fins, we’ve earmarked three destinations to explore. One, just offshore, will see us descend some 30 metres to the wreck of the Iro, an old fleet oiler; despite resting on the ocean floor for almost 70 years, the ship still carries live ammunition.
From here, it’s an hour’s boat ride south to the next site, Blue Corner, the journey taking us over electric-blue lagoons that encircle Palau’s dramatic Rock Islands, a scattering of around 250 white limestone islets and plugs – only a dozen of them inhabited – swathed in dense foliage.
The fact that U.S. reality TV show Survivor has used Palau as its backdrop for two seasons of the series comes as no surprise – the farflung landfalls offer the obligatory coconut palms, white-sand beaches and shallow reefs. From the air, they look like a bale of breaching turtles but at sea level, the islands’ jagged rocky overhangs and leafy caves come into focus.
Approaching Blue Corner, I spot the first real sign of tourism I’ve seen all trip: a handful of dive boats bobbing between buoys, loading and offloading wetsuit-clad foreigners. Considered by many industry publications as the single best dive location in the world, the spot would be overrun if it were a little farther west, in Thailand or the Philippines.
Pulling on my fins, I fall back into the warm water and slowly sink to the Corner’s famed vertical reef wall, which drops down more than 330 metres. We drift around the upper reaches, where redtooth triggerfish, pyramid butterfly fish and Napoleon wrasse dart between giant Gorgonian sea fans and cabbage coral, before catching the current to a ridge where we attach reef hooks to the rock floor. Green turtles, eagle rays and giant groupers glide by, although I barely notice them for the dozens of grey reef sharks just metres from my hook.
We end the day nearby at the German Channel – a path that was cut through the coral when Palau was under German occupation – where we sit on the ocean floor and stare upwards at manta rays the size of small cars, causing a frenzy among schools of cuttlefish as they surge past.
Later, on the Fish ’n Fin boat deck, we meet up with blissfully happy divers from as far away as Germany and as close as Guam, to exchange tall tales over chilled bottles of Red Rooster, the excellent local beer, and slabs of home-baked banana cake.
In Australia, you’re taught from an early age either to eat jellyfish or avoid them at all costs, lest you become the recipient of a painful sting. But in Palau, travellers are positively encouraged to get up close and personal with these gelatinous creatures.
An ancient marine lake at the centre of one of the rock islands, cut off from the sea thousands of years ago, Jellyfish Lake seems remarkably calm on the surface. I fin in to the centre of the tarn, spotting the occasional blob of white far below me in the inky water. As I reach a rock wall, the sun comes out and I find myself surrounded by thousands of the stingless jellyfish, some as big as grapefruit and others no larger than my little fingernail.
Despite signs beseeching visitors not to touch the critters, a bump or two is inevitable – at one point I’m enveloped by so many that they wash over me like snowflakes, their skins as soft as a baby’s cheek. I imagine that this must be what it’s like to float through outer space, dodging asteroids and shooting stars.
The fact that most of Palau’s inner lagoons are as still as Jellyfish Lake makes the archipelago ideal for kayaking as well. With herons and egrets patrolling above, we duck under rock archways and navigate around the wings of rusting bombers protruding from the water; when the sun gets too hot, we roll out of the Kodachrome-coloured kayaks and fin through vast coral gardens teeming with triggerfish and Moorish idols and purple-lipped clams so large that you’d swear they’d been raised on a diet of steroids.
There’s not a great deal to do and see on dry land, save for the odd off-roading expedition – six months down the track, I’m yet to remove all the mud from the clothes I wore on this particular outing – and a drive-by visit to the Capitol complex.
While most roads in Palau end at docks or jetties, one navigates inland to the outlandish, all-white house of Palau’s parliament. Until the mid-1960s, non-military travellers to the archipelago needed special security clearance from the U.S. Navy to visit. Today, it’s an independent nation and White House permission is no longer needed to travel here. Although you wouldn’t know that arriving at the Capitol.
Some 20 years in the making, the parliament building is a Neoclassical fantasy, its flag-topped dome not dissimilar to the one crowning the American government HQ in Washington D.C. Despite the design similarities, the Capitol is a world away in setting, surrounded by grassy fields and palm trees on the outskirts of Koror.
Almost a quarter of the country’s population turned up for the official opening in 2006, gazing up at the 12.2-metre-high dome that cost some US$45 million to erect. It’s at such odds with the rest of the islands that it almost feels right to purchase postcards of the edifice while I wait for my flight home. “Beautiful Palau,” declares the card I buy to send back to my office, the inscription looping over the white-topped building. They’ll be convinced the archipelago is part of the Land of the Free now. •
Photography by Natasha Dragun and courtesy of the Palau Visitors Authority.
Getting there
United Airlines flies from Cairns to Guam, with daily connections on to Palau. united.com
When to Go
The diving in Palau is great year-round, although June through October can see rain, strong winds and choppy seas.
Where to Stay
Koror’s top accommodation, the Palau Royal Resort, has modern, light-filled rooms flanking a private beach and lagoon. palau-royal-resort.com
Comfortable rooms overlook the jungle at the Palasia Hotel Palau, located in the heart of Koror’s city centre.
palasia-hotel.com
What to Do
The following companies organise tours around the Rock Islands; the guides at Sam’s are hugely knowledgeable and great kayaking hosts, while Fish ’n Fins is regarded as Palau’s leading dive outfit.
• Fish ’n Fins. fishnfins.com
• IMPAC Tours. palau-impac.com/english
• Sam’s Tours. samstours.com
Further Information
The Palau Visitors Authority can offer additional advice on travelling to Palau. visit-palau.com
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