I am in wet and overcast Palau 11 days diving with Sams Tours with a group 10 sydney siders. After 2 days travell we all arrived ok with our bodies and bags intact EXCEPT ME. One of my SYNC cables has snapped. It was packed carefully in the PELICAN case, so it must have been dropped. The internet here is really slow, I was wondering if someone knows an online store that ships to palau. I have been searching for hours without luck.

I have worked around the broken cable by removing my sea and sea ttl convertor 3 an running one strobe direct and the other as a slave.
I have subal nd2 housing modified for the d300 with 2 inon z240s

I cannot ask my wife to do this, she is looking after the kids and our business already. Its a big planet. If you want skype me 680 778 1082 with any suggestions or ideas.

Thanks

How about great service from Sams Tours, they met us at the airport late last night to organise our first days diving today. Today we had average vis and light, but the fish life , the super friendly baby mantaray, with turtles and sharks.

I have had no luck getting spare synch cables shipped and am making due with the work around. I have no feedback from backscatter which is disappointing.
Sam diving has been lots of fun and the diving has been great even though everyday has been overcast or raining.

The BACKSCATTER order for the sync cables arrived 10 minutes before the boat was leaving for the last days diving. I installed it on the boat and enjoyed the use two strobes firing reliably at last. It took 9 days to arrive, but at least I got synch cords. Thanks BACKSCATTER I will take a spare next time and pack even more carefully.

While we were diving at Sam's the IMAX guys, some on rebeathers were shooting 3D macro creatures with a massive camera. I wish the weather had been clearer for them and us. Only 4 out of 11 really blue water days. But even a bad days diving in Palau beats the average local diving in Sydney and the 29 degree water was fantastic. I think the idea of a Madarin fish and clown fish and nudibranch jumping out at you on the giant IMAX screen should not be missed. Don't miss the Palau 3D IMAX movie.

One of our first dives was the ULONG channel, here the NATURAL shark action was as good as I have seen anywhere in tropical reefs. The plan was to reef hook into the ridge at about 18 meters against gentle to medium current AND not to go out from the reef wall and disturb the action. A few others groups of divers were also picked in and on this occaision all divers from all groups observed the protocol for the site. We were all rewarded with great shark action and very close encouters within 2 to 3 meters.
Early on I spotted this massive bait ball, but we were not allowed to swimout and investigate it. I asked to comeback.

Palau is an awesome destination and I recommend its sites. I also found the service we experienced at SAM's was exceptional.
The free 32% nitrox was a blast. With the super compact 80 litre twins I could dive 4 to 5 hours per day anywhere between 5 and 40 meters. The variety of schools of fish, sharks, Mantas, underwater topology, caves, wrecks and reefs kept me entertained underwater. My group of dive friends are amazing company and it really enhanced the trip.
Our group of 5 to 10 divers had our own boat, we had a great dive guide JIM and very experienced driver JIMMY.
After 32 dives in 11 days , we only doubled up, revisited a couple of the best sites Blue holes, Blue corner and ULONG.
Most of the dives were around 70 to 80 minutes and between 15 to 30 meters.

Often I would surface up to 1 km behind the main group as I generally drift very slowly and peacefully along the reef walls until I find compelling subjects. In these very remote spots having a driver with 12 years experience was incredible, often JIMMY new exactly where I was and I never had to wait to long to be picked up. I purchased an extra long good quality safety sausage after my first few days diving, so as soon as you start your safety stop you pop your sausage. A buddy who did not have a sausage while at 2 meters deep was almost chopped by the motors in front of my eyes, luckily he avoided the boat and can move very fast in the water. Around these very busy dive sites, with lots of boats, I would not go in the water without a highly visible and safety sausage. In this case LENGTH really matters.

On the last dive day we revisited ULONG. We planned to visit the 50-60 deep massive bait ball that had been hammered by big jacks and 2 meter long grey reef sharks who were cutting the ball to pieces. My limit on 32% was 40 meters as the bottom sloped from 25 to 60 to 80 meters around this site. I actually did 39.9 which was a fluke as I never checked my computer until after the dive.

Initially no bait ball visible anywhere and I signalled Jim I was to coming back to the group on the reef wall and hang and enjoy the sharks cruising the reef. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the bait ball in the distance. I pointed it out to Jim and must have swam 60 meters out to meet it in a couple of seconds. From the first shot to the last was 62 seconds. The bait ball behaved just like a very big fast frightened fish that was 20 meters by 20 meters. I saw 4 good sized grey reef sharks and many big jacks hearding it around and chasing it into the blue. I was in manual mode and did not have time check the exposure settings as the action was happening all around and so fast. Luckily I could salvage some of the very underexposed shots. Next time I will be in
aperture priority, f2.8 iso 800. Its pretty dark shooting down on the bait ball at 40 meters, and the water was not really clear. The moments like this that I mess up are the ones I don't forget.

I also got a free T shirt from SAM's after creating a different type of photo by taking off all my scuba gear except for fins in the Chanderlier cave at a depth of 10 meters and wearing the SAMs Tshirt with my Aussie cowboy hat. It looks like I am above the water, except for the fins and the I'm about to drown look in my eyes. The photo and the free T shirt were worth it.

I cannot wait to go back to Palau, we had heaps of other exciting dives, but its worth keeping some secrets. Just go dive and visit Palau if you get the chance.

Thanks for the nice trip report. I already plan vsit Palau and this only adds to the desire.