One of the reasons Palau is so well known is for the health, abundance, and diversity of its corals, and tremendous biodiversity of its fish. It also has a large population of manta rays and sharks, sharks, and more sharks. It is a shark sanctuary, in fact. We were particularly blessed by the weather gods when Kurt was with us, with sunshine every day and gorgeous clear water. One major highlight was on a dive off of the southern reef of Peleliu, a famous WWII site, where we had a close up encounter at a depth of 80 feet with a Whale Shark. I’m not sure what was a bigger highlight- seeing that huge and magnificent creature swim past us or hearing the excitement of our Japanese dive guide yelling “WHALE SHARK! WHALE SHARK!” with his great accent (‘Where Shock!’) to everyone he saw on shore afterwards. Apparently Whale Sharks are only spotted a couple of times a year in the whole Palauan archipelago and he had never seen one in his five years of being a dive guide. So Kurt brought some magic with him and we were sorry to see him leave!