Palau

Four hundred and forty-five uninhabited limestone islands make up the Rock Islands Southern Lagoon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012 and the only mixed natural-and-cultural listing anywhere in the Pacific islands — mushroom-stemmed islets ringing hidden marine lakes, rising out of a reef against which most other dive maps are still measured. Blue Corner's current-swept wall and the manta cleaning station at German Channel sit a short run from Koror; Jellyfish Lake, cut off from the open sea since the last ice age, is a short walk inland from the tender dock. More than sixty Japanese wrecks from 1944 lie in the surrounding water, and the battlefield at Peleliu remains close to untouched. None of this happened by accident: Palau declared the world's first shark sanctuary in 2009 and closed four-fifths of its national waters to fishing outright in 2020, and every visitor signs a pledge to the same effect on arrival. Koror, the low-key town on Malakal Harbour, does duty as customs post, dinghy dock and dinner table — there is no marina, in the usual sense, anywhere in the country.

“Four-fifths of Palau's ocean is now closed to fishing outright — which is roughly the point of chartering here at all.”

Signature anchorages

Koror out to Peleliu: a UNESCO lagoon of 445 islets, a marine lake, a current-hooked wall, and a battlefield left almost exactly as 1944 found it.

• Malakal Harbour & KororThe base — the country's sole port of entry, a fully sheltered lagoon anchorage off the Royal Belau Yacht Club's mooring field on Malakal Island, good holding in mud. Palau Super Yachts, the resident agent, arranges stern-to dockage (backed onto the quay, bow anchored out) for up to five yachts to about 85m LOA (length overall); shore power isn't currently available.
• Rock Islands Southern LagoonThe UNESCO core — 445 uninhabited limestone islets a short run south of Koror, walled by mushroom-cut cliffs and threaded with hidden marine lakes; sheltered pockets throughout give good holding on sand and coral rubble, but every night at anchor inside the lagoon needs the Rock Islands Permit already aboard.
• Jellyfish Lake, Eil MalkThe marine lake — a short walk inland from the tender dock to a lake sealed off from the open sea since the last ice age; snorkel only, scuba banned outright to protect the hydrogen-sulphide layer at around 15m. The resident golden jellyfish population swings hard in El Niño years — ask your agent for a current count.
• Blue Corner & German Channel, NgemelisThe wall — a current-swept promontory on the outer reef, 26km south-west of Koror, worked with a reef hook — a line-and-clip that pins a diver to bare rock, hands-free, against the current — for grey reef sharks and the odd napoleon wrasse. German Channel, a passage dredged by German phosphate engineers in 1911, is the more reliable manta cleaning station, best December to March.
• Ulong Island — Long Beach & Ulong ChannelThe channel — a broad, current-fed drift dive through the reef pass west of the island's beach, ancient petroglyphs cut into the cliffs above; strong, unpredictable currents call for reef-hook experience, while the beach itself is a sheltered picnic anchorage in settled weather.
• Chandelier CaveThe cavern — five limestone chambers south-west of Koror, entered four metres underwater, four of them holding air pockets bright with stalactites; a short, sheltered stop worked into most Rock Islands days, torch required.
• PeleliuThe battlefield — anchor off the southern tip for wrecks including the Japanese oiler Iro and a well-preserved Zero fighter, then go ashore to a battlefield left much as the fighting left it in 1944. A separate Peleliu State diving permit applies here, on top of the Rock Islands pass.

The scene

Table & stay ashore

A week, sketched

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