DIVE LOG Australasia

FROLICKING WITH SHARKS & FISHES IN PALAU Images and text by NIGEL MARSH www.nigelmarshphotography.com S wimming out into the blue is always a risk, as you never know what you will see. On this excursion into the blue we had already seen grey reef sharks and schools of trevally and barracuda, yet were hoping for something a little more dramatic. And then we saw it, a dense school of fish – thousands of bumphead parrotfish. However, this was no ordinary gathering of fish as the bumphead parrotfish were spawning! This early morning spawning was just one of the amazing things I saw in Palau on a recent trip on Ocean Hunter III.

Palau is a small island nation in the northern Pacific Ocean and is part of Micronesia. Located east of the Philippines, Palau was the first nation to declare its waters a shark sanctuary in 2009 and currently protects almost all its reefs as a marine sanctuary – meaning lots of sharks and fishes for divers to see. Getting to Palau has never been easy, with flights via an assortment of surrounding nations, unfortunately with these flights constantly being rescheduled or cancelled. So when I heard the news that Nauru Airlines were offering a direct flight from Brisbane I was overjoyed, especially when I was asked by Diveplanit

to join a specially organised trip on Ocean Hunter III to celebrate this new route. Meeting our group at Brisbane Airport, we boarded our flight for the direct five and half hour overnight flight. Fortunately for us, the plane was almost empty, so we got a row of seats to ourselves to try and sleep. Arriving at 4.30am in Palau, we quickly got through customs and immigration and then had a few hours rest at the Palau Central Hotel, before the crew from Fish ’n’ Fins picked us up for our seven-day liveaboard trip on Ocean Hunter III.

Ocean Hunter III

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DIVE LOG Australasia #408 - October ‘24

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