Peleliu

We had a couple extra days in Palau after our sampling was finished, so we used the time to go on some fun SCUBA dives! Diving in Koror is temporarily forbidden, so we had to go down to Peleliu, on the southern end of Palau. Every dive was some combination of drifting with the current along a wall and anchoring in with reef hooks to marvel at the corals and big pelagic organisms. I'll post some of my favorite photos and anecdotes from our Peleliu dives below. 

Kharis with a sea turtle. Photo by David Weingarten.

There was one dive that remoras kept following us around and even brushing up against our wetsuits and fins. Photo by David Weingarten.

I have not edited this photo at all. Even at 20 m deep with no artificial lighting, that is what that coral looks like - spray paint orange. 

This is what most of the reef looks like, except that it's not really that blue in life. I didn't have strobes for this shot, and the human eye is apparently better at detecting low levels of red and yellow light than my camera was. 

A giant sea fan. Photo by David Weingarten.