>Woke up to a beautiful still, calm, sunny morning - and a great sunrise. There was no wave action at so the only sounds were from the birds - it sounded incredible. The boat was right on time at 9:30, and with a pleasant surprise - Sue had sent out fresh donuts, cold cokes, and water (we were only expecting the water). As soon as the boat got outside the reef the conditions changed for the worst - it was very rough and then it started to rain.
The first dive was at the virgin blue hole. This was by far my favorite dive in Palau so far. We entered through a hole in the reef table five feet below the boat and followed the shaft down to over a hundred feet. From the bottom of the hole there was a horizontal shaft about forty feet long to the face of a wall. Besides the dramatic holes in the reef we also saw great sea life - sharks, turtles (including one sleeping), and a couple Napoleon Wrasse were the highlights. After the dive everyone was freezing. Luckily a brief sun break allowed us to warm up before it started raining again. The second dive was back at the Blue Corner - I still think it's highly overrated, but this time was better than it's been. There was a huge Napoleon that was begging - easily touchable, in fact the dive master gave it a hug! There were also the usual sharks and some beautiful gorgonians. Because of the depth of the previous dive we Stacy and I ended up with a fourteen minute decompression stop at fifteen feet - the other divers spent nearly an hour in deco!
The whole boat ate lunch at Two Dog Beach (Bablomekang Island - where Stacy and I were camping). While they were eating Stacy and I started a fire - we definitely didn't want a repeat of last night. After the others left us it started to pour rain again. The good news is that we were easily able to collect a couple bottles of rain water just in case, but since Sue had sent us fresh water this was overkill. After lunch and clean up it was still raining, so Stacy napped while I read until diner. After diner we sat up and played cards around a camp fire.