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Blue Corner

Blue Corner is the signature dive at Palau. This is the corner of the reef system. The current is swift and you must use a reef hook to "hook" in at the corner. The corner is where the action is. Here all the sealife comes to feed. The little fish feed off of the rich plankton brought by the current. The larger fish feed off the smaller fish.

That brings us to the sharks. The sharks, well they feed off of everything.

Blue Corner is our first dive of the day. As always the briefing includes the full color map of the area. This one is a permanent one instead of the individual artistic wonders. This is going to be a special dive. You can feel the adrenaline flowing during the briefing. The reef hooks are passed out and we are ready to get wet.

The dive starts off as a normal drift dive. You backroll from the skiff and you're in the water.

You notice that the current is strong enough that you will not be able to go back the way you came. Like all drift dives, just go with the flow.

You need to watch where you are going so you don't run into anything or anybody. That is my problem with drifting. I get interested in what I am passing and not watching where I am going. Collisions result. So I like to be at a different depth than the others. Usually higher, but this time I end up below.

You hit the corner fast. You must be ready to stop and find a place quickly. If you miss your hook in, you will go flying over the plateau and your dive will be over. Then you will need to surface and have the skiff pick you up before you reach Austrailia. We did not have anyone "plateau out" on any of the hook in dives.

When hooked in, these magnificent grey reef sharks seem to float in the current. The current is so strong we need a large marlin hook and a length of rope just to stay stationary. The sharks hardly twitch a fin.

The sharks will hover in the current until something interesting catches their eye. They will slowly make their way against the current to their point of interest ( usually a fish or randomly floating Nietzche volume ). Then they come back to their starting point with great speed, since they are now moving with the current. But they never have to make an effort no matter the current or the speed at which they are travelling. They turn back into the current and start again. It reminds me off planes circling waiting to land, or more appropriately waiting their turn to make a bombing run.

The only problem was getting close enough to get a good picture. I don't think we were in the "feeding" channel. I guess some would consider this a good thing.

There were other fish that did not have anything to do with the all-you-can-eat buffet out in the open. Sweetie is a 4-foot long Napaleon Wrasse that likes to interact with the divers while they are hooked in and after.

Sweetie will even let you pet her if you are with Ike and friends. We actually ended up dancing awhile when everybody was getting ready to leave. Sweetie started circling around me and I was spinning ( when in doubt twirl! ) trying to keep shooting pictures of her.

I have been told I'm not as good a dancer as I think I am. I think I was just not deep enough to be sufficently narc'd. But, Sweetie wanted a better partner. Story of my life.

There were also schools of other fish over the plateau. I think they were waiting for the bus.

Even a nice mix of different types of barracuda and a shark or two.