After many hours in 4 airports & 3 airplanes, and crossing the International Dateline we arrived in Palau on the eve of August 4th, 2006. We were greeted by four days of windy and stormy weather, which unfortunately impacted the visibility of many of our dives. Fortunately, however, the weather took a turn and was beautiful for the remainder of the trip. We stayed at West Plaza By the Sea and dove with Sam’s Tours. Each morning Sam’s picked us up @ the hotel for the 10 minute drive to the operation. The diving in Palau was diverse: walls, caverns, drift dives, WWII wrecks, “muck” diving and a myriad of fascinating marine creatures including the elusive Mandarinfish. One of the many highlights of our time in Palau was Jellyfish Lake where we snorkeled w/over 18 million mastigias jellyfish which was an amazingly beautiful and peaceful experience. After 12 nights in Palau we headed to Yap for the final 3 days of our adventure. In Yap we stayed at the Manta Ray Bay Hotel and we were immediately very impressed upon our arrival. The accommodations were first class and the dive operation was conveniently part of the hotel. Each room had a theme and we stayed in the “Jellyfish” room. One of the highlights of Yap, no, one of the highlights of all of our travels came on the last day of our diving. We headed out to the dive site with glassy ocean conditions and then dove and swam with Manta Rays for several hours. It was a spectacular end to a wonderful trip. To capture & share this experience Rick used a Canon EOS 20d in an Aquatica Housing with dual Inon strobes. Rick shot macro with the Canon 60mm macro lens and wide angle with Canon’s 10-22 lens. Susie used an Olympus SP-350 in an Olympus housing with a Sea and Sea YS-90DX strobe. Susie used an Inon macro lens for macro and Inon wide angle lens for wide angle.