Palau

Keunggulan yang Berkelanjutan

I WAS READING SYLVIA EARLE’S FOREWARD TO Laut Kita, Masa Depan Kita: Palau, a lovely coffee-table pictorial book by Michael Aw, David Doubilet, and Jennifer Hayes. Earle opened by remarking on when she’s asked about the best place to go diving. Her usual answer is, “Almost anywhere, 50 years ago.” 

My go-to reply when asked the same question typically begins by inquiring if they mean by liveaboard or a time machine. Our similar responses reflect the harsh reality that we’ve seen an alarming degradation of coral reefs in our short lives as traveling divers.

I pondered what I’d see when revisiting Palau. When I first began international dive travel, I used to go to Palau every couple of years, but time and habits slipped away. I was surprised to find the conspicuous absence of a Palau folder in my digital archive, which meant that I hadn’t visited there since my 2001 conversion from film to digital. There has not been another destination I was so past due to revisit.  

Against the global backdrop of ocean wildlife’s fight against industrial fishing practices, which Earle also highlights in her introduction, the people of Palau have been incredibly progressive. In 2009 Palau became the first country in the world to protect their sharks with a national shark sanctuary in their exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The effort ended all commercial shark fishing in more than 200,000 square miles of ocean. A year later, then-President Johnson Toribiong announced an expanded sanctuary status that included marine mammals, thereby protecting dolphins, whales, and dugongs.   

The most ambitious conservation initiative was the Palau National Marine Sanctuary (PNMS), which bans all extractive activity — including industrial and artisanal fishing — in 80 percent of the EEZ, an area larger than California. President Tommy Remengesau Jr. signed the law in October 2015, and since its implementation on Jan. 1, 2020, no other country has assigned marine protected status to such a significant proportion of their national waters.

The efforts are working. The reefs and marine life I saw this year were better than anything I recall from the mid-1990s. I have no empirical baseline, just memory. Factors contributing to Palau’s coral health include geographic luck that the prime reefs are far offshore from the general population centers, the cleansing effect of ocean currents, national conservation efforts, and respectful divers. 

Another facet we can’t ignore is the improvement of the dive product. The dive operators have become skilled at watching tides and lunar phases to accurately predict the right times to dive their reefs. They also know when to visit specific reefs to ensure divers can observe episodic behavioral phenomena such as spawning. 

Déjà Vu but Better

Traveling to Palau is a bit of a slog from North America; most travel options pass through Guam and entail long transit times. We weren’t terribly disappointed to have an easy dive on the afternoon of our arrival to mitigate jet lag and fatigue. It still provided interesting photo opportunities and reflected evidence of the fierce fighting that these islands endured during World War II.

Pulau-pulau di Pasifik memiliki arti penting secara strategis pada awal tahun 1944 karena melindungi wilayah yang diduduki Jepang di Filipina, Malaysia, Kalimantan, dan Hindia Belanda. Palau dan Peleliu di dekatnya menjadi target serangan udara AS tanpa henti, yang menenggelamkan lebih dari 60 kapal Jepang. Jepang menyelamatkan setidaknya 27 bangkai kapal untuk membantu membayar ganti rugi perang mereka, tetapi masih ada sejumlah besar kapal bersejarah yang tersisa untuk diselami. 

These waters also hold many aircraft. Some sank after aerial dogfights, some from being strafed while at harbor, and some from bad luck, which seems to have been the case with the “Jake” seaplane. Resting at 45 feet, just 10 minutes from the Koror dock, its wreckage does not have any bullet holes to indicate aggression or a bent propellor from striking the ocean surface at speed.

A local fisher first spotted the plane’s outline on the seafloor in 1994 and informed a local dive shop. Paul Tzimoulis and Geri Murphy took the first underwater photos of it while they were in Palau to shoot a Penyelam Kulit magazine article. It’s a beautifully intact aircraft sitting in a vast field of hard corals and festooned with colorful encrusting sponges. The visibility on our dive was only about 25 feet, but the sponge cloaking the propellor exploded with color under a bit of strobe light.

Melalui Darat atau dengan Liveaboard

Untuk perjalanan ini, saya menjadi tuan rumah bagi kelompok saya di pantai, tetapi sebelumnya saya telah menyelam di Palau dari kapal. Ada pro dan kontra untuk setiap opsi. 

The daily trips leave Koror in the morning and run 45 to 50 minutes through the protected and scenic Rock Islands to Palau’s iconic dive sites. Most boats do three-tank dives with a lunch break on the beach of a nearby island. Several of these islands have infrastructure, such as picnic tables and restroom facilities, making a day at sea less of a hardship — and you need some time to offgas anyway. 

Liveaboards membawa penyelam ke lokasi yang sama tetapi dapat dengan mudah menawarkan empat kali penyelaman per hari karena mereka dapat berlabuh di dekat lokasi penyelaman. Penyelaman malam hari juga lebih mudah dilakukan. 

Keputusan tentang opsi mana yang lebih baik untuk Anda lebih tentang preferensi gaya hidup daripada portofolio penyelaman. Bahkan menyelam di Peleliu dapat dilakukan dari daratan, tetapi lebih lama dan lebih mudah dari kapal. 

Parade Piscine

Our first morning’s speedboat ride takes us 27 miles (43 kilometers) southwest of Koror to Pengantaran Baru. Awak kapal memberi tahu kami bahwa arus bisa kuat di lokasi tersebut, tetapi kami tiba pada saat air surut dan disuguhi penyelaman yang sangat lembut. Terumbu karang dimulai hanya beberapa meter di bawah permukaan dan merupakan bagian dari dinding vertikal yang membentang di sepanjang Pulau Ngemelis. 

Dindingnya dihiasi dengan indah dengan kipas laut yang besar dan berwarna-warni serta kelompok ikan kupu-kupu piramida yang membuat saya jengkel, karena saya tidak pernah bisa mendekat untuk mendapatkan bidikan fokus dekat dan sudut lebar yang saya bayangkan. Gerombolan ikan kakap dan barakuda jauh lebih toleran terhadap pendekatan saya. 

If the current were running, we would have used a reef hook to hold a position at the second corner along the wall and wait for the gray reef sharks to pass near. That’s their typical protocol, but the variable conditions always define the dive in Palau. 

Kami pergi ke tempat terdekat Dexter’s Wall untuk penyelaman berikutnya, di mana kami menemukan sotong yang sangat tenang dan tidak menghiraukan keberadaan kami. Fitur dasar lautnya serupa di banyak situs dinding di sini, termasuk Blue Corner yang terkenal, yang hanya berjarak beberapa ratus meter.

New Drop-Off is so good you will likely visit it a few times during a week’s dive itinerary. Our second dive there later in the week was absolutely worth it when we saw abundant turtles along the top of the wall in only 15 feet (24 meters). Those with their eyes away from a viewfinder long enough to see the entire spectacle counted 18 green sea turtles in the shallows. They were so docile that I later commented to our divemaster that they were much more approachable than the ones we saw on subsequent dives in Peleliu. She wryly winked at me and asked which island I thought had a tradition of fishing for turtles.

Sudut Biru adalah penyelaman paling terkenal di Palau, dan tidak diragukan lagi mengesankan, tetapi sangat berbeda tergantung pada arusnya. Arus dapat tiba-tiba berubah arah secara horizontal atau vertikal, sehingga divemaster menginstruksikan penyelam untuk menambatkan ke sedikit substrat berbatu dengan kait terumbu dan sedikit mengembang BCD mereka untuk mengangkat dari dasar dan menghindari mempengaruhi karang yang hidup. 

Arus yang kuat telah mengikis bagian atas terumbu karang, sehingga prosedur ini lebih ramah lingkungan daripada kedengarannya. Mengaitkan diri memungkinkan penyelam melayang di tempat tanpa gerakan berlebihan yang dapat menakut-nakuti hiu. Penyelam yang terampil dan arus yang tepat dapat memungkinkan kedekatan dengan hiu karang abu-abu, yang menjadi sorotan utama penyelaman. 

Ikan kakatua bohar yang sangat besar dan gerombolan kakap blueline yang besar juga berkumpul di sini. Ikan napoleon wrasses biasa ditemukan, dan Anda bisa mendapatkan kawanan kakap bohar yang besar jika siklus bulannya tepat. Sebagian besar rencana perjalanan selama seminggu menyediakan beberapa kali penyelaman di Blue Corner karena permintaan populer untuk parade ikan piscine yang beragam. 

The pantheon of the world’s top tropical dives includes Saluran Ulong, which is unique among Palau sites. This shallow channel through Ulong Island’s reef structure has a bottom of no more than 45 feet (14 meters) and coral and marine life in little holes that speckle the bottom and slopes along both sides. Sometimes the current is swift, and at other times you gently fin along the bottom during slack tide. 

Penyelam biasanya turun ke kedalaman 60 kaki (18 meter) di sebelah utara saluran, yang merupakan tempat yang bagus untuk hiu karang abu-abu. Arus yang masuk menyalurkan ke dalam saluran dan memberikan kesempatan yang bagus untuk memotret hiu dengan latar belakang karang daripada latar belakang biru tua di sebagian besar lokasi dinding lainnya. 

The dive’s defining feature is the massive cluster of lettuce corals vertically following the reef slope’s contour for almost 25 feet (7,6 meters). It’s not only the coral itself that makes it so compelling, but also the countless small squirrelfish and damselfish that occupy all the little nooks and crannies of this large coral condominium.

Pemijahan Ikan Kakatua Kepala Bumphead

Peristiwa pemijahan di Grassland ini mungkin dulunya dirahasiakan, tetapi melihat 11 perahu berkumpul di sini pada pagi hari menunjukkan bahwa kabarnya sudah tersebar. Kumpulan ikan kakatua bumphead terbesar yang diketahui memijah (Bolbometopon muricatum) terjadi dengan fase bulan bulanan jika pasang dan suhu tepat. 

Saat sejumlah besar ikan kakatua bumphead bergerombol di perairan dangkal, para pengamat dan ikan-ikan tersebut saling mengantisipasi. Ikan kakatua bergerak ke dasar pasir sekitar 80 kaki (24 meter) sebagai satu kesatuan yang kohesif dan kemudian bergegas ke atas, ikan betina saling berdekatan dengan ikan jantan. Dalam sebuah ledakan yang disinkronkan, mereka melepaskan telur dan sperma. Para fotografer harus berada di tempat dan waktu yang tepat untuk mengabadikan tarian prokreasi yang dinamis ini.  

I think about all the well-known spawning aggregations and ponder how few are truly protected. One pass with a purse seine net could wipe out a generation of fish, but thanks to the conservation conviction of the Palau government and the Palau dive fleet’s ongoing vigilance, this spawn is secure for now. 

Plan ahead if the bumphead spawning is part of your Palau wish list. Your dive operator will know when it will happen and can help you refine your dates. We did it on two consecutive days and were more productive on the second day after learning the event’s rhythm.

Manta Mecca

Pada tahun 1905, ketika Palau masih menjadi jajahan Jerman, Jerman menyadari nilai dari memanen deposit guano dari burung-burung laut di Pulau Angaur karena nilai komersialnya sebagai pupuk karena kandungan fosfatnya yang tinggi. Agar kargo tersebut dapat dibawa ke pelabuhan secara efisien untuk dikapalkan kembali ke Eropa, sebuah kanal harus digali di antara Pulau Ngemelis dan Ngercheu. Bahasa Jerman Saluran sekarang sangat dangkal di beberapa tempat sehingga hanya speedboat dengan draft dangkal yang dapat menavigasinya dengan percaya diri. 

Underwater, the channel has become a manta mecca due to several cleaning stations at just 45 feet (14 meters). The dive guides know where to position divers, and it typically doesn’t take long before mantas will queue up for their daily dose of hygiene. They are indifferent to the presence of divers, and proximity is probable for anyone patient enough to kneel in the sand and wait.

Kami menyelam di Selat Jerman beberapa kali, sehingga pengalaman baru mendekati manta memudar selama seminggu. Namun, pada suatu sore, kami disuguhi hiruk-pikuk yang luar biasa dari ikan kakap bohar, pelari pelangi, dan pari manta saat mereka berkumpul untuk memakan arus yang kaya plankton yang mengalir melalui saluran. Semua aksi tersebut terjadi di kedalaman 20 kaki (6 meter), dengan pari manta yang membuat lingkaran dengan mulut menganga dan gerombolan kakap yang rakus mengunyah makanannya. Kami berharap dapat mengulanginya, tetapi tidak pernah lagi mendapatkan sinergi kondisi seperti itu selama kami berada di lokasi. 

Coral Gardens offered excellent boulder and branching hard corals; while most were quite pristine, there was also evidence of coral bleaching in the staghorns. One day in a week’s itinerary is likely enough for Peleliu. It’s a good site to experience, but there are many other options.

Petualangan diskresioner di Palau biasanya termasuk snorkeling di Danau Ubur-uburNamun, kami mengetahui bahwa populasi ubur-ubur emas (Mastigias papua etpisoni) sangat mengecewakan. Tanyakan kepada operator selam Anda untuk informasi terbaru, tetapi dengan biaya izin snorkeling $100 dan penurunan populasi, kami memilih untuk tidak mengikuti apa yang biasanya menjadi sorotan dalam petualangan Palau. 

The Palau Visitors Authority explained that the lake is sensitive to El Niño and La Niña weather patterns, which can affect the wind and rainstorms that help keep the lake cool. While we were there, La Niña was contributing to a water temperature too high for normal golden jellyfish reproduction. The weather will eventually be favorable for their life cycle again, and local knowledge will help inform visitors when it is right to add the activity back to your plans. AD

Jelajahi Lebih Lanjut

See more of Palau’s pristine beauty in this video and Stephen Frink’s bonus gallery.

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© Penyelam Siaga - Q3 2023