Palau, Micronesia is one of the places on my wish list that I've always wanted to visit . Not only because of the beauty of the islands and pristine water, but mainly because of its fame among scuba-divers around the globe!
I remember two years ago I bought a book titled "Passport to diving the world: Limited Edition" by Australasia Scuba Diver and saw some photos of grey reef sharks that were taken in Palau, Micronesia. I flipped through the pages and marked some pages with my yellow sticky-notes. Those pages with the sticky-notes would be my next scuba-diving holidays targets :D .. and Palau was one of them! :)
And here I am... in Palau, Micronesia! Yeahhh!!! I spent a week in this beautiful place and spared a few days for scuba-diving. Among some of the famous dive sites of Palau that I went: Turtle Cove, German Channel, Sias Tunnel, Blue Holes, Blue Corner.... Ulong Channel was my favorite. I had such a great diving experience in this dive site!
Do you want to know why? Watch the video I recorded in Ulong Channel today:
See? Lots and lots of grey reef sharks!
Visibility was around 20 meters, water temperature was warm - 30 degrees Celcius. We went down to 21.4 meters below the surface and marveled around. At one spot, we hooked on a big rock and watched the 'show'. Here's some quotes on my log book:
"So many sharks!!! Wow!!! I LOVE this dive site! :)
Lots and lots of grey reef sharks, white tip and black tip sharks. Probably around 30 sharks or so. They're just cruisin' around...
We put our reef hook and enjoyed the show. That was really cool! The sharks were EVERYWHERE. It's like watchin' a TV show. Reminded me of the dive at Castle Rock, Komodo National Park, Indonesia. But this one was better since there were lots of big grey reef sharks!
I couldn't even decide where to look. I looked to the left, but suddenly there was a shark swimming right above me :D. It was such a really cool dive. Loved it! So many small fish, too. At one point, they looked like a big cloud and so tiny compared to the sharks who swam in between them! So damn cool!!!"
I loved grey reef sharks. Their size is bigger than black tip and/or white tip sharks. They look fatter :p. But sadly, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) has assessed grey reef sharks as Near Threatened. Why?
Sharks have a slow reproduction cycle. A shark will need 12-15 years to be ready to mate!
And with this slow cycle, sharks have to face a lot of threats. The biggest threat is being hunt by humans and used for various products, such as shark fins soup! Bummer!!!
By the way, do you know that Indonesia is the main supplier for sharks fins for the world's demand, such as Hongkong, Singapore and China? How humiliating! And it is also known that Indonesia catch the most sharks compared to other countries in the world. In 2004, Indonesia caught 122,000 sharks! OMG!
What can we do to protect them?
If we're not sitting on the fancy chair in the authority and don't have the power to change the policy of this nation, perhaps we can start by telling everyone to stop consuming SHARKS FIN SOUP and other sharks dishes!!!
Anyway, back to my amazing dive in Palau, Micronesia... swimming with plenty of grey reef sharks, I only wish that none of them got caught and ended up in a soup bowl at a fancy restaurant... *sigh*
Swimming with Stingless Jellyfish in Palau
Stingless jellyfish?
Yep. This animal does exist! And there are only two places in the world known as its habitat: Palau, Micronesia and Kakaban Island, Indonesia :)
The scientific name of the stingless jellyfish is Ornate Cassiopeia. They live in a close environment, thus, they do not have any threats from vertebrates. That's why they don't need to stings to protect themselves :).
On my trip in Palau, Micronesia, I spent a good half of day swimming with these cute stingless jellyfish at Stingless Jellyfish Lake, located at the Fifth Island, part of the Rock Islands. To reach the lake, we had to go by boat and walked in a forest on a dirt and rocky path. The path could be slippery, so be careful! But, what we experienced after walking up and down the dirt path was something that I would remember for the rest of my life...
I recorded some videos of the stingless jellyfish. This one is for you :)
Once you're there, you wouldn't want to leave the place. It's so magical! Swimming in a green lake, surrounded by beautiful nature in the middle of nowhere... it was soooo peaceful! And... having to witness the stingless jellyfish lake that only live in two places in the world was indeed something special and memorable... :)
It was amazing to see thousands of jellyfish swimming all around me. Yet, they're not harmful! Ohhh... sooo cute!!! I loved it especially when I did 'free-dives' -- in which, I took a deep breath, hold my breath, and dove a few meters down. Suddenly, I felt like I was in a dream world. So surreal. Everything was green, with jellyfish dancing all around me.... It was indeed like in a fantasy world and I was there 'free-diving' happily like a five year old girl...
However, when I was observing the jellyfish, I spotted one or two of them heavily injured. One of them didn't even have a full body! And the other only had half body left! Ouch. I wonder why?
Then, I noticed that tourists are allowed to use fins when swimming in this lake. I don't think it's a good idea, since these jellyfish are very fragile. If we snorkel and use fins, it would be hard to control our fins as there were thousands of jellyfish all around. It would be impossible not to swipe them with our fins!
So, I think, putting a sign: "Please Do Not Touch The Jellyfish" is not enough. The authority should also consider banning tourists from using fins in order to protect the stingless jellyfish.
I could imagine if the number of tourists going to this lake were increased, how many stingless jellyfish got kicked from the snorkelers' fins per day?
Yep. This animal does exist! And there are only two places in the world known as its habitat: Palau, Micronesia and Kakaban Island, Indonesia :)
The scientific name of the stingless jellyfish is Ornate Cassiopeia. They live in a close environment, thus, they do not have any threats from vertebrates. That's why they don't need to stings to protect themselves :).
On my trip in Palau, Micronesia, I spent a good half of day swimming with these cute stingless jellyfish at Stingless Jellyfish Lake, located at the Fifth Island, part of the Rock Islands. To reach the lake, we had to go by boat and walked in a forest on a dirt and rocky path. The path could be slippery, so be careful! But, what we experienced after walking up and down the dirt path was something that I would remember for the rest of my life...
I recorded some videos of the stingless jellyfish. This one is for you :)
Once you're there, you wouldn't want to leave the place. It's so magical! Swimming in a green lake, surrounded by beautiful nature in the middle of nowhere... it was soooo peaceful! And... having to witness the stingless jellyfish lake that only live in two places in the world was indeed something special and memorable... :)
It was amazing to see thousands of jellyfish swimming all around me. Yet, they're not harmful! Ohhh... sooo cute!!! I loved it especially when I did 'free-dives' -- in which, I took a deep breath, hold my breath, and dove a few meters down. Suddenly, I felt like I was in a dream world. So surreal. Everything was green, with jellyfish dancing all around me.... It was indeed like in a fantasy world and I was there 'free-diving' happily like a five year old girl...
However, when I was observing the jellyfish, I spotted one or two of them heavily injured. One of them didn't even have a full body! And the other only had half body left! Ouch. I wonder why?
Then, I noticed that tourists are allowed to use fins when swimming in this lake. I don't think it's a good idea, since these jellyfish are very fragile. If we snorkel and use fins, it would be hard to control our fins as there were thousands of jellyfish all around. It would be impossible not to swipe them with our fins!
So, I think, putting a sign: "Please Do Not Touch The Jellyfish" is not enough. The authority should also consider banning tourists from using fins in order to protect the stingless jellyfish.
I could imagine if the number of tourists going to this lake were increased, how many stingless jellyfish got kicked from the snorkelers' fins per day?
Taman Bacaan Pelangi (Rainbow Reading Gardens) Now Have a Website!
Dear readers,
For those of you who want to know more about Taman Bacaan Pelangi (Rainbow Reading Gardens), small libraries that I set up in remote areas of Flores, Indonesia, please click here or visit our website at:
http://tamanbacaanpelangi.com/
We thanked our friends at Dag Dig Dug who have donated the website for us and also Andy Harvey for designing the website!
Thank you sooooo much!!! GBU yaaa!
And oh... you can also connect us on social media. Please join us at Facebook by clicking here or our facebook group here. And, don't forget to follow us on twitter @pelangibooks
See you there, guys! :)
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