Palau: Koror, Rock Islands and German Channel

Koror is the capital of Palau, a small republic in the northwest corner of the Pacific Ocean. A rather crowded town where we are looking for the culture of Palau and where we can do quite good  (but expensive) shopping.

The Rock Islands are situated south of Koror and offer a fascinating sailing area with green islands (broccoli florets in Pacific blue and green water) and lots of beautiful anchorages, a lovely area to explore with dinghy of kayak. You can also snorkel between lots of smaller and colourful fishes and do scubadiving on impressive wrecks from WWII.

Via German Channel we enter the 'mekka' of the scubadivers, Palau's commercial underwater activities. There are two floating hotels with every week a new 'gang' of scubadivers on holyday. From 09.00 am on the diveboats of the several divecompanies enter the German Channel to bring their guests to the most beautiful places. We look where they are going to, read our book with divesites and follow the directions of John, the skipper of the charteryacht 'Eclipse'. In that way we make some very beautiful dives.

Double-click on any picture in the gallery for an enlargement.

Sam's Tours dive-center is the meetingplace for cruisers at anchor near Koror	10 minuts by taxi to the center of Koror or 10 minuts walk to the mini-markets and restaurants close-by	View from Alexandra on the jetty's of the dive-center and the Palau yachtclub
Facade of traditional 'Bai' (communityhouse) painted with historic scenes from myths and legends	In jail we find a beautiful collection of 'storyboards', woodcarvings with myths en legends	Christmas display
Rock Islands seen from the air	Cruising through the Rock Islands	The occasional showers keep the islands green
In the rock islands we find a lot of lagoons and small inner lakes	In this small lake there are thousands of non stinging jellyfish	It is a strange experience to swim in Jellyfish lake!
German Channel is a manmade passage through the reef	Length 1 km, width 5m, depth 2.50 - 3.50m at hightide	On the reefs outside the German Channel you find the famous dive spots of Palau like Blue Corner
We meet five enthousiastic Dutch divers	They have chartered the yacht 'Eclipse', with schipper John and divemaster/cook Charly	Farewell dinnerparty at Kramers restaurant