Out on the Senator's boat

About a week ago, the same guy who took us out on the boat to go to Jellyfish (who we found out is actually and senator of Koror) lake told us he would take us out again today. He was too busy to go with us so he just arranged to have boat and driver ready for us. We tried inviting some of our new found friends but only Jason and I were able to go. So, at 8:30am we pulled up to the Senator's house and met our driver Gerwin. We thought we were just going to go see some cool islands and go snorkeling so we were excited and floored when the driver said "So, you guys want to go diving right?" Just so you know, the senator used to run a diving outfit so we felt pretty comfortable going out even though he wasn't there. The driver and the senator's househelper took us to a garage/shed type place where they kept a large amount of scuba gear. Jason and I were both able to find gear to fit us so off we went. We decided to go back to German Channel where we saw all the mantas and fish. I was a little hesitant because I wanted to end our experience at German channel with the dive we had last time. I figured we wouldn't be able to replicate it so we shouldn't try. But we decided to go because that is the only one we felt comfortable diving without a guide.

We jump in the water, descend and promptly see 3 sharks. It was a good start to a dive but we decided to dive it how we did last time and hover around 35 ft to look for mantas and schools of fish. Gerwin said that we should just head toward the other bouy that we could see in the distance. Since I was the only one with a compass, Jason gave me a briefing on how to navigate and off we went. The visibility wasn't great and it wasn't soon before I looked down and I saw dusky blue and I looked up and I saw dusky blue. I was leading the way with the compass so I couldn't see Jason either unless I twisted myself around to make sure he was still behind me. I did this quite often which is why I think we we ended up in a totally different spot than we meant to. Actually, I think we were going the right way, the current just carried us a little. Somewhere in the mass of blue, Jason ran into a jellyfish tenacle. This is what it did to his arm.


I first saw his welts underwater and I was terrified at first because I thought he had some scuba disease where the air goes to his skin and makes little bubbles under it. So I was relieved to find out it was just a jellyfish sting. :] Poor Jason, it must have really hurt to make all those welts.
Pretty soon after that, we decided to stop. It was an ok dive none the less.

Next we headed to the Rosegarden where we saw really cool anenome fish and fed the rest of the millions of fish. The coral there is mostly dead though.

Next we headed to an arch that everyone seems to want to take us to. It is a pretty cool arch, granted. When we were done taking our picture in front of it, Jason asked, "Were you ever used to be able to go under the arch in a boat?" He asked because there was a huge boulder sitting under the arch. Gerwin is like "You want to try?" and off we went. Jason was giggling the whole time, in a very manly way. I was looking over the side of the boat, watching the hermit crabs go back into their shells because yes, it was that shallow. Here is a picture of us ON THE OTHER SIDE wow.


Then Gerwin took us to cemetary. We thought that we had been there already. We thought that was the place where I got my clam wound. But it was this little place hidden amoungst the Rock islands. There was tons of beautiful coral and a huge diversity of fish. Here is a picture of me with some fish.


I think that names of the two snorkel spots should be switched. The Rosegarden would be more appropriate a name for the cemetary because at the cemetary, the noral is alive and beautiful and some of it looks like roses. The Rosegarden should be named cemetary because all the coral is dead. Anyway...

Then we went to another snorkel spot called "soft coral garden". It has a lot of beautiful soft coral there. It is in colors like yellow, pink and red. There is also an arch there. This is a picture Jason took after he said "See how far you can make it out of the water Larissa!"


All in all a great day except that I had 5 bouts of the hiccups.