Sharks, Shells and Jellyfish: How We Spent Our Winter Vacation

There are certain destinations that are on every SCUBA diver's Bucket List - the Great Barrier Reef, Bonaire, Truk Lagoon - but the very best diving in the world, most would agree, is in Palau, a tiny cluster of islands in Micronesia. Now Consilium's Terry Rudden and Valerie Assinewe of Stonecircle can cross one more item off that bucket list, and confirm that it's all true; Palau is the dive trip of a lifetime, and worth every exhausting minute of the sixty-two hours of flight and airport time it took to get there and back.

Terry and Valerie elected to dive the islands from the Tropic Dancer (below, centre) live-aboard, a small, dive-focused boat on a mini ten-day cruise. Good decision. The dive sites are widely dispersed, and currents are strong; shore-based divers were limited to two dives per day, while T & V got in an average of four dives. Add to that the luxury of a sun deck, a gourmet on-board chef from Nepal, and the complete absence of internet, email, or even newspapers - and you have a recipe for perfect contentment.

Sharks in the current: our home away from home: T&V tethered

The variety of dive sites is staggering. Palau has it all; wrecks, deep walls, drifts, channels, coral gardens, caverns and caves. The island's signature site is Blue Corner (above, left and right), a current-swept cut in the shelf where hundreds of sharks gather to feed on the schools of smaller fish (and hardly EVER divers). Divers hook in to a patch of dead coral right on the edge of a seemingly bottomless drop off and watch the action. Note the way Teresa's hair streams straight back - now THAT'S current.

Another unusual dive (or snorkel, actually - no gear allowed) is Jellyfish Lake (below, left), a 12,000 year old lake where stingless jellyfish have bred for millennia. Snorkeling in the lake is like diving through a giant, living tapioca pudding of pulsing jellies (or so we assume, never having actually dived in tapioca).

(T, V and Jellyfriends: Paulau Sunset: Valerie Finds Nemo

One of the most memorable dives took place off Peleliu, one of the islands in the Palau group, and site of one of WWII's bloodiest battles. Our day began with a screening of a documentary on the attack, followed by a land tour of the invasion sites and Japanese caves and foxholes, and capped by a dive of White and Orange beaches, where shattered landing craft and unexploded shells are slowing transforming into beautiful coral gardens.

Great dives, perfect weather, fine shipboard dining, great company and a complete media fast - I think we found the perfect way to spend February.