Travis travels Palau and dives!

G'day!

So I'm telling you, I don't even know where to start telling you. I'm so excited right now. It's best if I try it one at a time. Although first things first: I dived! But more on that later.

Because my oldest caught a bit of a cold, she couldn't go diving yesterday. So we rented a car and drove around the island.

We looked at a few things, but not everything - or so my oldest says.

Well, I thought it was quite a lot.

A Bai is a traditional men's meeting house. An important and quasi-holy place. You can only look at it from the outside.

There was a fish and coral breeding station nearby.

And they even had a submarine there!

Then I thought about diving again and whether there could be a submarine for me too. No matter, let's move on first.

We went to Melekeok. This is officially the capital of the state of Palau. They wrote into the constitution that after the founding of the state, Koror should only be the temporary capital. That's why, after much back and forth and with around $50 million, the Americans financed the construction of a kind of Capitol duplicate.

It's basically in the middle of nowhere on a hill and someone told me that the people who are supposed to work there are still using their offices in Koror. Among other things, because there are no cafes near this new building. In addition, it is only pompous from the outside. The pillars sound hollow and after just a few years you can see cracks everywhere.

They also probably did something wrong with the ventilation and therefore have a mold problem. Anyway, it's kind of a strange place.

My older ones said it was like Las Vegas. I've never been there. So I don't know exactly what they mean by that.

In any case, from there we drove back towards the sea. It's never really that far away here. And sat in a really nice café right by the water. Almost entirely for us.

What we also saw is one of the many relics from a time called "World War II". When I hear that, I feel completely different. The whole world at war?! And this is the second time?! I hope something like this doesn't happen again. Because everything I see here seems quite depressing. Wrecks, broken buildings, etc.

At the diving center we briefly met the nice divers that my older ones had been with for the last few days, Gerd and Christian, and then drove somewhere where you could see the sun go down.

If you know the cardinal directions, you can find the right place for it. Luckily my older ones know about this. You know, the sun sets in the west. But of course you already knew that. Sorry, I just learned it. Did you also know that south of the equator, the sun is in the north at noon instead of in the south? I found that really exciting. That was the case when we were in Australia.

In between, my older one broke his flip flops. “There must be a worm in there somehow,” said my oldest. Well, I didn't see any worms. And can a small worm actually break such a big shoe?

In any case, my oldest had to buy new flip flops despite all attempts at repairs. Our trash can describes the overall situation: runny tissues and broken shoes:

This morning my oldest wasn't feeling well enough to dive again. That's why my big one goes off alone. I stayed with my older one. After all, I can't leave her alone. Someone has to be careful.

And imagine, we actually tried out diving for me! First baby steps, so to speak.

We chose the quiet beach right next to the hotel.

At first we wanted to build a small Travis boat. From an empty peanut can. Initially it was weighed down with stones. It was a bit shaky and I was a bit unsure whether it was all a good idea.

In fact, the boat tipped over once and if my oldest hadn't been paying close attention, it would have been a "bear overboard" emergency. Luckily only the tip of my ear got a little wet. It wasn't that bad after all.

We replaced the stones with sand and I was then able to sail around in my boat in a totally cool way like a real sea bear.

But that's not enough. I really wanted to take a look beneath the surface - although with the super clear water here you can also do that from above the water. I just didn't want to get really wet. So we used a zipper bag. Zipper actually means zipper - but the bag doesn't have one at all. Just a white slider. But whatever. Of course my oldest held me tight so that nothing happened to me.

Imagine, I could actually see some small fish and corals! And that was really cool!

Now I'm so proud of myself! Maybe I can test the getting wet thing again at some point. Then diving would of course be much easier. But one by one. As a good friend of my oldest always says: “Let it sink in first.” That has nothing to do with a sack, my oldest explained to me, but rather means that such an intense experience needs a little time to take effect. You have to get used to the new thing. At least it's still working at the moment, I think. I'm so excited and happy as hell.

All love and warm regards from Travis the Buddy Bear