Yesterday I shared some of my favorite underwater Palau photos featuring fish, clams, coral, and a few other marine surprises.

But I’ve saved the best for last. Today’s images come from two of Palau’s most popular dive sites, the German Channel and Blue Corner. Spoiler alert: there are tons of sharks.

I’ll start with the German Channel, a site we dive twice. Our plan of attack is to descend to the cleaning station, an area where fish, turtles, rays, and sharks congregate to be cleaned. This involves the removal of parasites performed by cleaner shrimp and fish. The approaching animal will open its mouth wide to signal that it needs cleaning (although to me this seems interchangeable with the signal for eating) and then smaller creatures bite parasites off the skin and even swim inside the mouth and gills to clean up there.

Our true purpose for this dive is to spot the illusive manta ray. The odds are in our favor because of the current status of the moon and tides.

We huddle behind rocks and keep our eyes (and underwater cameras) on the cleaning station.

There’s a bit of down time so I indulge in an underwater selfie.

While we are unsuccessful in our attempt to spot a manta ray, the sharks do put on an impressive show overhead. On my past dives I’ve viewed sharks from above, but I’ve never been lower than them. I dig this vantage point.

Here are a few garden eels:

As my dive master Hiro indicates on his board, here we encounter some Dogtooth tunas:

The next day we spot two sharks copulating. This is apparently VERY rare to see. They swim around each other in figure eights, getting closer and closer.

And now let’s move on to the Blue Corner.

This is, hands down, the best dive site in Palau. Our boat cuts through extremely choppy water to reach this dive site. We’re all a bit nauseous but as soon as we get underwater everything is calm. And so clear.

This is the best visibility on any dive I’ve ever done. I can’t believe how clear these photos came out. That shark in the photo below could be a hundred feet away, but you can see it perfectly.

This Napoleon fish acts more like a puppy. It LOVES our dive master Scuba Steve and even lets him play air guitar with its gills.

We gently pet the Napoleon and he/she seems to like the attention, as it follows us for the entire 45 minute duration of our dive.

We’ve been promised lots of sharks on this dive, and Blue Corner delivers from the get-go:

Our plan is to descend to a certain depth and then use our reef hooks to clamp onto dead coral and simply watch as the sharks put on a show. And that’s exactly what happens. We stay like this for 15 or 20 minutes and soak it all in.

For the record, there is no zoom action in these photos. A handful of times these sharks pass by within maybe three feet of us. I would be worried about the close proximity, but they pay us absolutely no attention.

We tear ourselves away and press on. Napoleon comes with us.

Hi Napoleon!

These last few photos are from our final dive at New Drop Off. While not as impressive as Blue Corner, it is nonetheless a stellar dive. We spot more sharks, turtles, and a variety of fish.

This is a type of box fish, named for its square shape:

And can you make out this flat fish? It blends into the sand but the round eyes give it away.

And here’s some video footage I cut together from these spectacular dives:

I have to add that, despite all of this terrific diving, I am disappointed we did not get a chance to dive the Blue Holes. Fellow divers at Sipadan described it as their all-time favorite dive, and it’s the one I was most looking forward to in Palau. Unfortunately the waves are too choppy and after our Blue Corner dive we have to get out of there before everyone gets sea sick. Fair enough, as I felt nauseous myself. And I’m not at all disappointed with our Blue Corner dive — in fact, I’m elated. But I regret that the weather did not allow an opportunity to experience Blue Hole for myself. Maybe one day I’ll get back to Palau to see this:

(images via here, here, here, and here)

I’ll be back on Monday with a recap of my final dive in Chandelier Cave, which takes place in the dark with flashlights and giant stalactites branching down. Totally fascinating.

Special thanks to Fish ‘N Fins for providing me with a 20% discount on my dive activities. As always, opinions are my own.