Confessions of a Cabana Boy: Vacation in Palau

We are on vacation! My sister and brother-in-law, Cheryl and Phil, joined us in Guam where we got on the plane for Palau. While this destination was highly recommended to us by islanders and tourists alike, I really didn’t have much in the way of expectations except a clean hotel, decent food, and great snorkeling.

We arrived at the nicest airport I’ve been to in the South Pacific (except Guam which doesn’t really count). It’s clean, attractive and efficient. We were picked up by a man from our hotel and brought to the Waterfront Villa. It is not posh, but rather funky. For $80/night we have our own furnished apartment that is nicer than our house in Majuro. It is run by Seventh Day Adventists so there is absolutely no help from sundown on Friday to 6 PM on Saturday, but they forewarn you and beyond this little inconvenience, the help is warm, friendly, and eager to please. There is a restaurant that serves a decent breakfast and a pool.

Two of my favorite Palauans so far are the two ladies we met at the Budget Rent-a-Car. They were happy to chat with Cheryl and I about their customs, including the money beads the Palauan women receive from parents and husbands that is worth more to them than actual money. They told us that their country was originally Belau but people said the name so fast that others misunderstood the B for a P and so it because Palau. They recommended restaurants and things to see and do. They were wonderful!

My other favorite person is Swing. On Sunday, we helped ourselves to the posh resort, eating lunch and snorkeling off of their beach. I asked the bartender what he would do if he was a visitor here with just a couple of days. He said, “I’d call Swing and have him take me out on his boat. He is Palauan and he knows all of the good spots.” We got a phone number and thought we’d give him a call later on. Later that evening we were at a restaurant, chatting it up with the waitress. She wanted to know what we were up to and we told her we wanted to snorkel. She told us that she knows Swing and that yes, we need to go with him. In fact, she said she would call him on the spot and she did!

So yesterday we go with Swing. He is funny and friendly and he does know all of the good spots. We started out a little crabby because we found out there is a $100 permit we needed to purchase in addition to the boat ride but we buy our permits and board. From there we pick up another couple who are from Germany and off we go. The snorkeling was amazing and just kept getting better. He took us to four different spots in addition to Jellyfish Lake.

This is a lake that is 60% saltwater and 40% rainwater. Somehow the jellyfish made their way through crevices from the sea into this lake and over time lost their stinging tentacles through evolution since there are no predators to threaten them in the lake. Willard and I hiked up some very uneven and quite vertical steps for several minutes until I thought I would die (there are no steps in Majuro to keep me in shape) and then down into the lake. You just put on your mask and fins and hop in and swim with a gazillion jellyfish that range in size from a marble to larger than a softball. There are a couple of species of fish as well but you don’t notice them - you just see that you are surrounded by these gentle moving peach colored sea creatures, everywhere! We were also surrounded by two hundred Taiwanese. It turns out that these folks can come to Palau for $500 on a chartered trip and they come in droves. What cracked me up is that we kept crossing paths with them in the lake and the ocean and every time they were out in the water just chatting it up with one another. Very few were actually looking at anything beneath the surface! It made me even happier we had chosen to go with Swing!

As I said, the snorkeling here is amazing. We have seen more varieties of coral than I have ever seen and there are fish galore! There is absolutely no litter on the sea floor which makes me happy to have paid the permit fee. I think my new favorite creature is the giant clam! We find the shells on our beach in Majuro but I have not seen one live until now. They can weigh up to 400 pounds and can be 3 feet high. What is amazing is that most of the ones we have seen have these brilliant, electric colorings - almost psychedelic - and each one is very different than the next. Some are blue, others green or pink or ….. Anyway, at the end of our last snorkel, Swing told the six of us to grab the tow rope and he drug us through the water. It made me feel like a kid and it was a fun way to end the day. We all had to admit we were very tired; Swing had given us our money’s worth!

We are loving our time with Cheryl and Phil and happily eating our way through Palau. We have eaten in several places and feel we struck gold every time. They even have a brewery here that makes a very nice amber! We’ve also toured the aquarium and museum and found them to be nicely done. Today we are driving the islands so we’ll see what kind of mischief we can make on this new adventure!

Being with Cheryl and Phil makes me realize how much we miss all of you. Please let us know how you are doing – throw us a line once in a while! Take care, we send our love,

Becky and the Cabana Boy