Red snapper spawning!!!

In my last few weeks here I have been diving a ton.  It all started with a spawning dive a few weeks ago.  We got up at 4 am to be out in the water by 6 in the hopes of catching a red snapper spawning.  It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  The spawning takes place near the deep outer reefs, so there is a shelf at about 90 feet and besides that it is just open ocean.  The fish swarm in these big schools of 1000s of fish and then every now and then one fish darts out of the cluster to lay eggs and a herd follow to try and fertilize them.  It's all very frantic and dramatic and the current was pretty strong so it made for an exciting dive.  Every direction I looked there were fish. it was almost too much to take in.  During all this someone points out a big bull shark that was cruising by.  It was by far the largest thing I have yet to see under water, maybe 8 feet long and very big around.  After that I pretty much felt like if I never dove again I could be happy!

The foreigners from work, plus a few others

So I followed this amazing diving experience with a really big cultural even a few days later.  In Palau there are two big ceremonies, funerals and 1st birth ceremonies.  My co-worker sherly's big sister was in Palau from the states for her 1st birth ceremony and all the foreigners from the office got invited.  Every Palauan woman has one of these for her first baby and traditionally it was a ceremony just for women.  The woman is given a ceremonial hot bath for 10 days or so (depending on the clan) leading up to the 1st birth celebration.  The baths consist of her being  covered in oil and then has boiling hot water thrown on her.  The oil keeps the water from burning, but apparently it still doesn't feel great.  The actually 1st birth ceremony is kind of like a giant baby shower but way more fun!  Instead of presents people give money, and lots of it.  Now days men come too, and the only reason I could get out of anyone for this change was that they are still not really welcome but they want to see the dancing and no one stops them.  

Guests at the 1st birth

offerings for the husbands family.  Notice the koolaid and salt!  There was also wine, some Japanese liquor and soy sauce. 

initial dancing with Lisa, aka the lady in red
 who spear headed the singing

Yes that's right, dancing, and lots of it.  Basically the first hour or more of the ceremony is spent eating and dancing around a live singer and stuffing money in her shirt.  After awhile the woman who has just had her baby comes out in traditional dress and then stands for another hour while people dance around her and give her money.  Eventually she gets to go back inside and sit down, and by this time people were pretty drunk and then it was just a lot of dancing for the fun of it.  

Shirley's sister being walked out on grass mats

Aunties dancing around.  I think the wine was getting to them because they grabbed some fruit from the big bowls and started dancing with it on their heads and everyone seemed to think it was pretty funny.

husband and baby

The yellow color of her skin is the oil they use to keep the boiling water from burning her.  The head dress and color and pattern in her skirt are determined by family clan and rank and made by aunties usually or local artists.  The leaf she is holding is one of they herbs they use for the hot bathing.   I could not believe how long this poor lady had to stand in the boiling sun.  Various Aunties and sisters came and fed her little sips of water and the ever essential Beetel nut that everyone chews here




Once Shirley's sister went inside things got a little more crazy.  The dancing had been pretty sexual all day but it got down right dirty by the end.  Shirley brought out the foreign ladies for a dance towards at this point and the lady next to me kept insisting that I poke the singer Lisa in the side.  She just kept shouting "poke her!  Like this" and then she would poke her, so eventually I did just to get her to stop shouting and she thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened.  You can see her in the picture below.  I'm the one in the purple shirt and she is the one on my left with the sunglasses on her head that is laughing hysterically.  I do love to entertain.  We stayed and danced for awhile and then eventually our ride was ready to go, so we left the real partying to the Palauans and called it a day.

fish on the way to blue corner

So as if two amazing days of Palau fun wasn't enough,  three days later the people at work decided to take the 5 of us who are leaving in December out for some fun dives as a thank you for our work.  We got to dive blue corner, via blue hole, which was the last spot on my dive wish list for Palau.  Blue hole is a big hole (hence the name) in some rock about 20 feet across and 100 feet deep.  You jump in and drop down this tub to a half cave that open up to the ocean.  pretty spectacular!  from there we swam along a big wall until we reached the corner, which is open ocean and a spot with lots of current, meaning lots of sharks, turtles and big schools of fish.  It did not disappoint!  At one point these two sharks were swimming around a school and corralling them and I kept thinking we were going to get to see a shark feed, but no luck.  Ah well, I guess I can't see everything on one trip!

Grey reef shark (I think) at blue corner

Well That's pretty much it.  I am just finishing up a few things at work and mainly trying to have as much fun as possible before I leave.  I went out diving 4 tdays last week and should get about the same this week, plus there is a Karaoke party Wednesday at work for all of us that are leaving, Thanksgiving Thursday and a camping trip on the weekend.  I figured I might as well end on a good note.  Hope everyone has a great Turkey day! Look forward to seeing some of you soon!

Hey Everyone!  I just wanted to let people know that I survived typhoon Haiyan.  Where I am in Koror there are lots of downed trees but nothing too serious.  The eye of the typhoon passes 15 miles north of here over the northern most island of Palau, where it leveled all the buildings except one.  Luckily that was the building all 80 residents had chosen to hide in, so everyone is okay.  Most of the damage is in the north of the country, but besides flooding, some lost roofs and a few blown down houses things are more or less okay.  I wish I had pictures of the storm to show you how crazy it was, but it came through around 3 am and my night photography skills are not that good.  All I can say is it was very loud and Palau is very luck it wasn't more devastating.  The internet is pretty slow but from what I have gathered the Philippines was not so lucky.  I weathered the storm with some friends at my house sitting apartment which has generators, water storage tanks and is very sturdy, plus we had enough food to last a week (the photo is just my portion of snacks).   Anyway, just wanted to say I am fine and thanks for those who sent emails!

Typhoon necessities

Hey Everyone!  Well it finally happened, life in Palau got busy.  I never thought I would see the day when I didn't have enough time to post a blog!  With under a month left here I am racing to finish (or start and then finish) projects at work and get out to all the sights I still want to see before I'm gone.  Here are some photos of what I've been up to the last few weeks.





Some friends and I rented kayaks and paddled out from the office into the rock islands to our own private beach. 

Last Weekend we went to Carp Island, a small Island an hour from Koror near Peleilu.  There is a tiny resort where we stayed that happens to be owned by our friends family, so we got the royal treatment thanks to our friend.  

Me with the most impressive plate of sashimi I have ever seen.

Views from Carp Island...

I did some fun diving a few weeks ago and finally saw sharks, lots of them actually, plus some turtles and big schools of fish.  I also got to dive down to a big cave that you can swim through.  From floor to ceiling it's probably 60 or 70 feet tall.  I am still hoping to get out to the most famous dive site, Blue corner, before I go.  It's a spot were a lot of sharks hang out.  I am also still hoping to do a wreck dive.  There is one we pass every day on our way to the Australian's field sites, so I am thinking of going on strike if we don't get to stop there one of these days soon.

There was a festival back in October for Koror, the state we live in.  There was traditional dancing, lots of food (including the largest cheese cake I have ever seen) and...

GREASED PIG CATCHING AND GREASED POLE CLIMBING!!!!!!!!  AMAZING!  The pig catching actually ended up being less comical then we imagined mainly because the pig wasn't really in the mood to run (can you blame her, it's hot out!), and it wasn't nearly greasy enough, so really it was more like pig tackling.  Three or Four guys would run at the pig, jump on top of it, and then fight each other for it.  Whoever caught the pig won it so it was quite the battle.  I think in the end most of us just felt bad for the pig.  The pole climbing was much more fun, and impressive.  The champion ended up being a young kid who put sand in his pockets and carried it up to the top of the pole to de-grease the final stretch of the pole.  Smart kid!  

Watching the spectacle with friends.

I didn't have time to get the photos from Halloween from my friend, so you all will just have to wait.  There is a US Army civil action team here and they had a haunted house.  The were looking for volunteers, so obviously I convinced a car load of people to come be zombies with me at the haunted house.  We got to chase people into a small mettle shed and then bang on the building and try to break in and eat their brains.  Pretty exciting stuff.  They told us it was from 7-11 pm, and we were figuring be a zombie until 9 or so and then their would be a post haunted house party.  WRONG!  We had to finally turn people away at 11 pm.  I am proud to say that our zombie crew carried the rest of the zombies, who were in need of a zombie break by 8 and not excited for another 3 hours of zombie fun.

So that's the update.  I'll try to post at least once more before I leave.  Hope everyone is having a happy November and that day light savings isn't getting you too down!  Talk to you soon,
Katharine