DIVE LOG Australasia

Schooling paddletail snapper at Blue Corner.

The night dive at nearby German Reef was much better, with the coral slope at this site home to sea slugs, shrimps, crabs, sleeping fish and hunting morays. The next morning, we finally got to dive Palau’s premier site, Blue Corner. This wall and reef plateau is washed by currents and a magnet for marine life. Though the current was not as strong as usual, we still encountered over a dozen grey reef sharks, schools of barracuda, trevally, rainbow runners and paddletail snapper. Around the coral gardens were turtles, gropers, Maori wrasse and morays.

The Blue Holes was our next dive and it was sensational. This site starts in an opening in the reef top, then you drop into a massive cavity with two exits at 18m and 28m. I found another rare Cocos-Keeling angelfish and other unusual fish in the cave and then enjoyed a drift along the nearby wall seeing reef sharks, turtles, morays and bumphead parrotfish. After lunch we dived Ngemelis Wall, another pretty wall dive, and then returned to Blue Corner for a repeat dose of the impressive marine life. Turtle Cove the next morning was exciting with its abundant turtles and schools of midnight snapper and

Green turtle resting at Turtle Wall.

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DIVE LOG Australasia #408 - October ‘24

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