Palau Travel Words

Kayaking Palau

Kayaking Palau

What to do when you find yourself on an island chain in the North Pacific and just really need to get away for a while?

Grab a kayak, hitch a ride, and launch out for the Rock Islands of Palau:

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Every morning, swarms of dive boats leave the city of Koror for the waters of the Rock Islands.
Approaching a Dive
Hitch a ride, and on the way to dive spots most will be happy to drop you on a beautiful white beach somewhere in the islands.
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Beach your kayak…
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…set up camp…
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…and get out into the water!
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At the end of the day, paddle out into the still water and watch the sky change colors over the islands.
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Or better yet, paddle straight into the sunset across still reflective seas.
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The next morning get up with the sun…
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Take a quick paddle before breakfast.
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Return to your private lagoon as the tide comes in.
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And repeat the experience again and again until the time comes to return to Koror.
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If you’re lucky, you might even be able to bum a ride home with one of the private sailboats plying the local waters!

 

As the rats chewed through the fabric of the tent and into my stores of food, I lay just inches away dreaming of hundreds of limestone islands and thousands of stingless jellyfish. Hours earlier, in the front seat of a dive boat running headfirst into a driving rain, I’d started to reconsider spending 6 days camping on a beach in the heart of the Rock Islands of Palau. Now the boat is gone, the camp is pitched, and the island’s resident vermin are making themselves known.

For a day or two at a time I meet no other people, though like Crusoe with his footprint I see evidence of day-trippers near my campsite in the smoldering cook fires and discarded chopsticks of their midday meals. While they feast, though, I paddle through rock arches and over calm lagoons cut off from the jostling waves of the open water.

In one quiet corner of these Rock Islands, the contours of a World War II fighter are slowly obscured by coral growth that becomes a home for tiny but colorful fish. I see no signs of the Japanese pilot, but if the nearby fortifications are indication he didn’t far to swim for his succor. In another, a reef shark cuts under the wake of my paddles and into the open sea. Judging by the speed of his flight, he may be nearly as startled by my presence as I am his. Further out, a sardine sanctuary guarded by a high-walled cave makes the perfect lunch stop.

I could easily fish for my food, but in one of the healthiest marine ecosystems I’ve ever seen I feel a bit guilty for even considering the idea. I subsist on basic foodstuffs brought from Koror, with the occasional gift of BBQ from chance-encountered snorkel-tripping Taiwanese tour groups who seem happy to oblige.

In the beginning, the wet salty destruction of the stops any considerations of photography with my ziploc-ensconced Canon, but with the slack tide at the dusk of this kayaking adventure my confidence grows. Still dry-bagged and double-ziplocked, I paddle my techno-passenger so gently that I barely ripple the calm surface of the Philippine Sea. As the sun’s fire plunges towards the deep-water horizon, seabirds leave their clifftop nests to fly in a low circle that seems to trace the movement of my slowly spinning sea kayak.

Back at camp, the light breeze blowing in from over the waves strengthens as it rises until it gains enough speed to spur the sparsely scattered clouds through the star-speckled sky. As full-dark falls and I finish dinner, I make ready once more for battle with the local rat community. I am the invader in this scenario, but armed with a double-blad(ed kayak paddle) and an uncontrollable army of local hermit crabs I will prevail! An hour or two later, my speciesist dominance temporarily established, I more prudently pack the rest of my food into the kayak’s dry hatch.

So ends each of my days of kayaking in Palau’s Rock Islands, but I will be up with the sun tomorrow morning to live the experience again.

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You like diving, you say? Then get thee to the waters of Palau.

 

A day on and in the underwater world of the Rock Islands of Palau:

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Approaching a Dive

Back to the Wall

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Wall Divers

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Descent to the Depths

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Turtle Lunch

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Find the Eyes

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3 Comments

  1. I think this is great but I loved your pics also. Guess I am no help – i say use both.

    Love U
    Mom

  2. I always enjoy your pictures so very much. Have told you that I love the way you see things. I have also enjoyed the many articles that you have written. So it is hard for me to say which I like most. You do tell a good story & it feels like I am really there in the story. I still remember the one you wrote about a view from a train window when you first went to China. It may have been on one of your first few trips. Love U Nan

  3. I went back & revisited the photos that you were talking about & they are simple wonderful views. Even your feet. Love Nan

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