"Who wants to see a video of a mating octopus?"

The ice in my welcome drink hasn’t even melted yet, and already dive guide Stuart Kyle has broken out his laptop to show this week’s guests on S/Y Palau Siren what might be in store. The wooden-hulled boat is lovely, from its signature royal-blue sails (unfurled only for show) to the cozy salon and roomy, rich teak staterooms — mine is bigger than my bedroom at home. We’ve gathered in the boat’s exterior dining area for an overview of the week ahead: We’ll motor through the sublime Rock Islands, which look like green gumdrops dotting the water, and stop at famed sites like Blue Corner and German Channel, as well as snorkel site Jellyfish Lake.


Palau, a Micronesian island nation about 950 miles east of the Philippines, is famous among divers for ripping currents and sharks. A shark sanctuary since 2009, the country’s stewardship shows — we’ll see sharks on nearly every dive. The current, however, is a little more elusive. In our official dive log, cruise director Diego Fernandez Caleri has described its absence at Blue Corner as “weird” because no reef hooks are needed. We drift pleasantly this way and that along the wall and over the top of the site, swimming through a fish soup of hawksbill turtles, butterflyfish, fusiliers, dogtooth tuna and schools of bigeye trevally. Stuart tells us later that someone has been feeding the gigantic Napoleon wrasse (a big no-no) that patrol the site and follow us like puppies begging for a treat.


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Next up is German Channel, home to two manta cleaning stations, one at about 45 feet and a deeper one at 60. We drop in and settle on the sand at the shallow station and wait, where we’re rewarded just five minutes later with the first of four giant mantas that’ll make an appearance on the dive, the final one winging by only a few feet away as we hover on our safety stop.


As the week progresses, the guests slide into an easy rhythm: Time not spent in the water is spent swinging in the hammock on the dive deck or dozing on one of the salon’s couches — “they’re narcotic,” says Diego — and I can’t disagree, as more than once the clanging dive bell rouses me from sleep.


Our final day on board begins not with a dive, but with a snorkel trip to Jellyfish Lake, home to millions of golden jellyfish. With no predators, the creatures have evolved over millennia to become stingless. It’s early morning, and we’re the only group in the large lake, which is tucked into the jungle and surrounded by lush, green hills. The jellyfish follow the sun, so we follow them, seeing first a dozen, then a hundred, and finally thousands, as thickly packed as salt in a saltshaker. They pulse through the water rhythmically, and when the sunlight hits them the effect is mesmerizing. More than 30 minutes pass like a single moment before we’re called back to the dock.

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As the week wraps up, it’s clear why Palau holds an almost mythical status among divers, and there’s surely no better way than a week aboard Siren to make the myth a reality. Although we haven’t spotted a mating octopus (I blame you, Stuart), what we have seen — manta rays winging through the water like underwater birds, a thriving population of reef sharks and the truly unforgettable Jellyfish Lake — feels just as rare. sirenfleet.com

A typical weeklong itinerary on S/Y Palau Siren starts from $3,464, including up to 22 dives, nitrox, equipment rental, meals, soft drinks and beer; crew tip and Jellyfish Lake park fees are not included.

THE BOAT

S/Y Palau Siren

Total passengers: 16

Cabins: 8

Total crew: 12

Length: 131 feet

Decks: 2

BRING THIS

DAN 6-Foot Surface Signal Sausage

Palau’s sometimes unpredictable currents mean you could surface far from the boat. Make it easy for the crew to spot you by deploying a surface signal sausage like this one from Divers Alert Network. The 6-foot sausage features a reflective strip on both sides and a radar-reflective panel on the inside of the tube. It can also be inflated from the bottom using a second-stage regulator. $60; dan.org