Stage 15 - Palau & Micronesia

Palau & Micronesia (Yap & Chuuk): 1 March 2009 - 31 March 2009

This last part of our South East Asia trip was a last minute decision. We had never even heard of Palau & Micronesia until we ran into some travellers who had been there and raved about the diving. Micronesia & Palau are located in the western Pacific Ocean, with the Philippines and Indonesia just to the west. Palau is famous in the diving world for its shark populations (130 species). In Micronesia, the island of Yap is famous for its manta rays and the island of Chuuk for its many intact WWII ship and plane wrecks, all easily accessible within a lagoon.

The Republic of Palau is an island nation and sovereign state, in free association with the US. The people are of Melanesian, Micronesian, and Malayan descent. Everyone speaks English and everyone is so easy-going. They still create these beautiful traditional "storyboards", where they carve their old stories and legends into wood.

The Federated States of Micronesia is an island nation which consists of hundreds of islands spread over a vast area. Like Palau, it is also a sovereign nation in free association with the US. On some of the more remote islands which are very difficult to get to and which we would have loved to have the time to go, the people still hang on to their traditions, music and dance.

Micronesia has a 6,000 year old seafaring culture. In the past, the people (those from Yap in particular) would sail thousands of miles of open ocean without the help of any navigation instruments, compasses or charts. They used only the stars, waves and birds to guide them. As an example, they would learn all the different patterns of the waves around the different islands to be able to identify where they were. Many schools of navigation were set up over time. Unfortunately today this knowledge is quickly being lost.

Yap is also famous for its round stone money which can weigh from a couple of pounds up to thousands of pounds. In the past, limestone was quarried and shipped from Palau, 250 miles away. The more difficult the trip, the more the money was "worth". Today the people use US dollars, but for traditional ceremonies, they may still use their stone money.

Chuuk (previously known as "Truk" amongst other names) has a lagoon of 40 miles in diameter, where more than 100 ships, planes and submarines sank after the fighting between the Japanese and the Allied Forces in WWII. There's nowhere better on earth for wreck diving.

Highlights

- Strapped tight to the reef with hooks in extreme current, watching the sharks swim slowly by in Palau
- Watching the ghostly manta rays glide by in the murky waters of Yap Island
- Enchanted by the beautifully coloured mandarin fish performing their night-time mating dance.
- Lovely stone-path walk on the Tamilyog trail past quiet village houses and the stone money.
- Visiting WWII shipwrecks and sunken planes in Chuuk lagoon and obtaining our Nitrox diving certificates

Lowlights

- While we were there, learning that the Palau government was considering allowing some shark hunting to resume (for 'fin' soup - a Chinese "delicacy" that wastes up to 100 million sharks each year). Miraculously, we now understand that the President of Palau has just announced to the United Nations (in Sep 09) that it would create the world's first shark sanctuary, a proposed area the size of France. If this truly goes ahead it would set an incredible example for the rest of the world.
- Steve sick with fever for 2 days .... we thought it was Dengue (the "bone-cruncher"). It wasn't.
- Supermarket aisles filled with tins of every conceivable variety of spam (there's that US association). Too bad we're veggies.
- Not straying too far from our hotel and dive centre in Chuuk or mixing with the locals as they are a tad too fond of their drinking and brawling. We loved the story of the ambitious bank raid though, where the robbers were caught not long after making their getaway in a waiting car. Chuuk is a small island and everybody knows everybody else.

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