Blue Corner
Body of Water:
Philippine Sea
GPS Coordinates
Lat: 7.133611
Lon: 134.220278
Most dive magazines rate Blue Corner as the single best dive in the world. The formation of the reef, sheer walls, and a large number of schooling fish make it a truly unique experience. There are three mooring buoys located along the reef. The eastern buoy, the central buoy, and the western buoy. You can dive this site from two different directions, depending on the current. Generally, divers will begin the dive while their boat is moored to either the eastern or western buoy. The central buoy is rarely used to start the dive.
Due to its location and formation Blue Corner very often gets strong currents - currents that attract lots of schooling fish feeding on smaller organisms traveling with the current. This attracts big predators which are looking for schooling fish. On most days you’ll jump in the water, go down, drift towards the corner, and have hundreds of fish and sharks around you as you make your way to the plateau.
Once hooked in on the plateau taking cover from the current you can just “hang” and enjoy the scenery - the sheer richness of sea-life surrounding you.
Reef
A vertical reef wall that runs south to north parallel to Ngemelis Island. The reef then turns toward the open sea and stretches out from East to West, creating a plateau at 45 to 60 feet (15 to 20 meters). Past Blue Corner the reef wall curves again and runs south to north. The wall drops from 30 to 1000 feet (10 to 330meters) or more and is covered with large variety of giant Gorgonian sea fans, hard corals, and soft corals. The Eastern part of the plateau consists of large patches of sand. Massive coral heads and rocks are scattered throughout the sandy patches. The flat coral plateau on the west drops gently from 45 to 60 feet (15 to 20 meters) with colonies of cabbage corals as well as many varieties of hard and soft corals.
Marine Life
Blue Corner Palau is home to some of the largest schools of fish in the world, here you can see just about every kind of fish found in the tropical ocean. Sharks, Wahoo, Tuna, Hawks Bill and Green turtles, Eagle Rays, Giant Groupers, and Barracuda, to name but a few species. These denizens come in very close, in fact, closer than you can imagine.
You will experience encounters here that you will provide plenty of thrills and excitement as well as great stories to tell friends. Blue Corner is said to offer the utmost photo opportunities in the world. According to the direction of the current, the pelagic fish will switch from one side of the corner to the other. Permanent residents at the Blue corner are large schools of Jacks, Snappers, Chevron barracudas (usually on top of the plateau), Redtooth Triggerfish, Pyramid Butterflyfish, profuse numbers of small tropical fish and Palaus famous Napoleon Wrasse. Occasionally divers spot Great Hammerheads, Whale Sharks, Mantas, Marlin, Sailfish, and whales.