Nick's Palau Pics
11/20/2005
Dear friends and colleagues, Quick update form Palau.
Things are going well here, and the business is very busy. Today was only my 2nd
day off in three weeks! Oh well...
My colleagues at work and the Fish and Fins staff is very nice, and I have a
little 1bdr apartment in central Koror.
The diving is incredible, as you can imagine. Sharks, mantas, barracudas, jacks,
mandarine fish, you name it. Then again, I do miss our kelp forest in
California, although not the cold water! Here's the wter temp is usually 84F,
viz between 100+ and 50, depending on the site.
By now the reef hook and my safety susge have become my inseparable friends,
very much needed cause sometimes the currents here are pretty strong.
The filming is going well, although there' s a big difference betwen shooting
divers (and marine life) on guided dives underwater, and shooting for your own
production and at your own leasure. Oh well, I guess it's all part of the
learning process... :-)
Jelly Fish Lake is the coolest thing ever, and Blue corner and New Drop Off are
sometimes almost too much sensory overload, with all kinds of fish zipping
around the reef. The Blue Holes and Temple of Doom (with a skeleton of a dead
turtle) are otherworldly experiences! And at German Channel each time I see a
manta my jaw drops, they're so beautiful!
The walls at most dive sites are loaded with invertebrates, my favorite being
the soft corals and the gorgonias. Very little time to focus on nudibranchs and
small stuff, as most wall dives are drift dives and the current goes pretty
fast, plus you need to stay with the group since it's part of the job. I'll
definitely have to make some time and go out by myself from time to time, to
film all that stuff at my own pace (e.g.,mandarin fish and nudibranchs, etc.)
Anyway, enough babbling. Check out some recent above the water and underwater
pix (video frame grabs) I put on my web page, respectively at
http://oceanwonders.org/Palau and http://oceanwonders.org/PalauUW Last thing, I
now have a Palauan cell phone: 680-779-9473 (plus the prefix 011 from the US).
Unfortunately though, I cannot send or receive text msgs on my cell, nor do I
have voice mail service; so it's a pretty basic cell phone service here, but
still it's a miracle considering that we're in the middle of nowhere! Email
however is still the best way to get ahold of me in case you need to.
Take care and have a great Holiday Season.
Nick