JET SET: HANGING WITH THE NAUTILUSES

Rock Islands, Micronesia – The divemaster hands me a nautilus. Cream-and-caramel striped, it's CD-sized, but thick-bodied, filling the curve of my palm. The cephalopod heaves within its chambered shell: one of nature's finest examples of a logarithmic spiral.

I fin over to one of the Sam's Tours guides. "It seems stressed," I scratch on a slate.

"That's how they move," he writes back.

True, nautiluses jet-propel by siphoning water. But any animal trying to jet this hard clearly isn't happy...

He releases the cephalopod. It bumbles downward, wobbling like a weak football pass. I descend and intercept, then hand off to my friend Robin. Together we examine its tentacles – maybe as many as 95 – bunched like wheat grass around the beak. It stops shuddering and protrudes more from its shell. Scent is a nautilus's primary sense. Maybe we taste like cage-bait chicken, even through all this neoprene and saltwater?

Finally Robin waves good-bye to the seven cephalopods. Along with her husband JD, we drift Shark Drop-off, which lives up to its name. We even blur past a cloud of 40 juvenile grey reefers: a treat, since few sharks school. The dive's a good one, yet I'm troubled. Is it fair to tractor-beam these animals from the deep, even if they can withstand it? Most live between 1,000-to-1,500 feet in 40°F-degree water. And we're spinning and poking them: 30 ft, 85°F...

Later I read Dr Neale Monks on the subject: "Animals very similar to the modern nautiluses were swimming the oceans when the dinosaurs walked the Earth," notes the paleontologist from London's Natural History Museum. "But the heyday of the nautiluses was well before that, around 500 million years ago. Clearly, this is an animal to treasure... Leave them in the sea where they belong."

Glad as I am to have experienced all this, now I agree. Once was enough...

ARGONAUTICA: IN SEARCH OF LIVING FOSSILS

Rock Islands, Micronesia – A small vessel switchbacks across the inner reef. "Want me to swim?" I gesture, as much as shout. The captain waves me off: maybe it's a point of pride, how close can he draw to the remote Lee Marvin Beach, where my kayak expedition's camped? He's awful good. I wade to mid-thigh, lunch held aloft, then clamber aboard.

Sam's Tours kindly detoured its chase boat, so I could join the nautilus dive. These deep-dwelling predators can equalize pressure in their chambered shells: the very ability that inspired submarine technology. So an outfitter baits a cage – nummy raw chickens attract the most cephalopods – at 600 to 1,000 feet overnight, then two ships winch it and its prehistoric occupants to 30ish.

My friend Robin tipped me off. I met her on the plane from Honolulu, as she wrangled a hijabed mother's suitcase. "I'll see you around," I said, as we parted, several bleary flights later in Koror. "Maybe we can hang out."

She laughed. But then she didn't know Palau yet. Three days later our dive boats moored alongside each other. We might have made plans then, except a dolphin pod circused up and bam, she dove in after 'em. After a stint in Iraq, who could blame her? The blue offers so much distraction and dissolution...

Then we crossed paths at Bottom Time, Sam's bar. And the great nautilus scheme hatched.

VIRGIN-BIRTH SHARKS AND FIN-SOUPING IN PALAU

Rock Islands, Micronesia – We slip through a tidal tunnel, then weave deeper into the lagoonlets. Finally Paddle Palau's Ron stops short. "Shhhhh," he says. "This is a shark nursery. We could see pups here."

Science still has much to learn about these predators. No one's quite sure how they sleep, for example. Ram-ventilators – who breathe by forcing oxygen-rich water over their mouths and gills – may be able to swim while unconscious. And sharks' breeding patterns don't argue strongly for intelligent design either. Babies are born live, hatched from an egg or via a weird combo-deal. In 2001, a Nebraska-zoo hammerhead even reproduced asexually, as the New Scientist noted. Then last year, Tidbit – a Virginia Aquarium blacktip – fertilized her own egg, but died before carrying the baby to term.

A pup of the same species flashes under my boat in Palau, then sweeps around the bowl of the bay, fleeing our kayaks' shadows. Though viviparous – live-birthed – this youngster never knew its mother. From day one, he's been a self-sufficient eating machine.

He's also born out of season. The blacktips (carcharhinus limbatus) pup here in autumn and summer, not early spring. Ron says: "every June, I take my son in there and we have 20 baby sharks swimming around our kayak."

That has to be the height of cool in a four-year-old's world ... I have 29 years on the kid and I nearly roll my boat, bouncing around for a glimpse.

Despite all the sweet, fubsy, pre-school-field-trip vibes, this little shark's threatened. People eat blacktips and also skin them for leather. Here the Taiwanese long-liners "accidentally" hook sharks and then harvest them for fin soup, which certain cultures prize, especially in East Asia. That region's expanding middle-class has tripled the demand in the last few decades. And not all shark populations can take the strain: some are down 80-90%, thanks, in part, to this trend.

Ron fights back. The marine biologist's even scaled the massive factory-ships, pirate-style, and stolen the meat drying on the prows. The Discovery Channel chronicled raids made by Palauan guides and divemasters in Sharks in Peril.

In 2003, the republic banned the harvesting of sharks, even as by-catch. After all, the country relies heavily on tourism. No point over-fishing your charismatic megafauna, especially when the species in question are also pokey-libidoed, apex predators. Mamma blacktips, for example, carry their young for 10–12 months... They're not bunnies in breeding-speed nor temperament.

But they're in boiling-hot water nonetheless. The ban's now up for reconsideration (legislation SB8-44 and SB8-50, April 2009).

Learn more about the "eco-catastrophe" of shark fin soup via CNN, SF Gate and The New York Times. Or run out and buy the award-larded documentary Sharkwater, released this April. I certainly plan to.

Riled up about throwing away 90% of an animal for a tasteless, status-boosting, hyper-expensive broth? Petition here.

Photo by Oliver Roux (otolithe), licensed through Creative Commons.

ALWAYS SURFACE LAUGHING

Rock Islands, Micronesia –  Ron is pulling out WWII whizbang facts, in front of the Japanese pill box. I focus on shooting photos, so I don't blurt spoilers like "Admiral Yamamoto" and "Battle of Midway!" Because when this man spins a yarn, you remember, even years later...

I recall the site well too: the graffiti, the hidden helmet, the roots throttling old sake bottles: the last-ditch Molotov-cocktail hoard, long abandoned. Faffing with a lens, I wave everyone ahead. Then I manage to, um, miss the path and claw over a jagged knoll. Which would be all fine, except Ron's warned us repeatedly about one thing.

"Do not get open cuts on an unsupported wilderness kayak expedition."

Around the bend from the group, I stop and try to rub away all the blood with spitty fingers: the height of jungle hygiene. Most of my comrades are parents or teachers. This technique's about as convincing as "the dog ate my homework".

So I bluster: "Where's my bento box? Bushwhacking's hungry work!"

***

Sometimes it's not so much about carrying off the subterfuge, as signalling, "please, don't fuss"...

***

Last year I accidentally strode off a dock into Italy's Lago di Como. Jetlag and rain-extinguished candles and 90-proof grappa all factored in, but, well, basically I muppeted.

I fell about 15 feet and hit inky, foul water, which reached the sternum of my satin, batwing jacket. I lifted my leather purse high – the EU Nokia cellphone survived, the US Virgin one didn't – and laughed, shouting, "I'm OK!" Then I swam over to a lower dock, where deckhands boosted me out.

Thanks to ankle straps, I didn't even lose my high heels. I did, however, stink like a vomitorium and have a bruise the shape and approximate size of Tin Tin's head. (Clearly, this is a travel omen. But the nuances are open to interpretation...)

Despite the applause, I was all hangdog, limping into the breakfast buffet the next day. Then an epic editor scolded: "in life, we can't prevent falls, we can only control the aftermath. Amanda, you stuck the dismount."

I perked up a little. Gymnast metaphors, after all, pretty much demand upflung arms and a quick bow. Maybe I could bob my hair, work my abs, really get into this shtick...

This editor knew the words to soothe any clumsy adventure writer. "All I could think was that if Tim Cahill were down there, he'd rubbing his hands together. Because now the story's getting good."

***

And that's the coda I repeat silently – a coda, a mantra even – as the jungle's microbes burrow and fester into my cuts.

"Now the story's getting good."

I trace my finger over inflamed welts.

"Scars are stories. Bodies should be lived in."

Go further...

"My body's a palimpsest."

Too far. Doh.

Thus I'm all philosophically conflicted when the scrapes heal and the eye infection blind-sides me.

Slick.

But I know what to do. As always, surface laughing...

SALTWATER-CROCODILE TEARS

KOROR, Palau – In the helicopter tour office, I'm roboting through liability forms. "Hey, there's Ron!" someone notes.

"Ron Leidich?" my head snaps up. "I've been trying to track him down for months." A biologist and outfitter, Ron's a driving force behind Paddling Palau, along with his wife Leticia Sicat-Leidich. "I've seen a journalist cry because he spent weeks here and couldn't corner Ron," she teases. "You're a lucky lady."

Yes, I am. My paparazzied source strolls in and bear-hugs me, though it's been 18 months or so since we met briefly. "Amanda! I have an unsupported wilderness paddle expedition leaving in 30 hours. Game?"

Natch.

That's the way of Micronesia. Things ... sort out. But they take time and a strange triangulation of fate, hustle and goodwill: a formula – laced with wild beauty – quite distinct to Palau.

I read as much as I can about the area's customs. How the people innovate wildly and welcome expats, but also how they have clung to a rare freedom of speech, which preserved traditions beyond the usual sell-by date.

As anthropologist R.E. Johannes noted in 1981: “harsh criticism or 'words of the lagoon,' (tekei l'choi) may be hurled by man or boy of any rank at anyone, chief included, whose efforts do not measure up on the fishing grounds. No one may express offense at being scolded under such conditions. Thus has excellence in fishing been preserved for centuries.”

These people know a good thing: new or old.

As do I.

So I cast off for the Rock Islands in a closed-shell kayak.

WHY DIVE WRITERS ARE LUCKIER THAN ROCK STARS

KOROR, Palau – The rain washed all the gunk from the air, just in time for my hour-long helicopter tour. Pilot Matt stripped the doors off the Hughes 500, so I could shoot photographs of the dive sites and Rock Islands.

Days like this, it's hard not to believe the hype – that I have the world's second best job, right behind "rock star". So April 25th, I'll share the career love at the Northwest Dive Expo in Tacoma, talking to tweens n' teens about all things travel writerly.

From an "experience scuba" tank to geek-chic rebreather test models, this expo explores the underside of the Salish Sea. Discover why Jacques Cousteau considered this region's waters among the world's best cold-water dive sites.

Other highlights of the weekend-long event include:

• Mystery critters: marine-life-encyclopedia author Andy Lamb fields queries. 4/25, 12pm.
• Alien life: Vancouver Aquarium's Donnie Reid talks about microbial structures, once considered "fresh water coral" – and what BC's Pavilion Lake teaches us about Earth's past and possible life on other planets. 4/25, 1pm.
• Introduction to underwater video with Truxton Terkla. 4/25, 3pm.
• Giant Pacific Octopuses: Marine biologist Jim Cosgrove discusses the world's largest octopus species – and why it grow biggest in NW waters. 4/25, 4pm.
• Saving Puget Sound: Mike Sato of People for Puget Sound explores the health of our ecosystem. 4/26, 10am.
• Rebreather seminar. Jeff Bozanic, author of Mastering Rebreathers, details tips for tech divers. 4/26, 1–3pm, $30.
• Underwater composition. Oregon-based photographers Jack and Sue Drafahl detail lighting, focus, framing, point of view, cropping, and eye flow. 4/26, 2pm.
• Six gill sharks: Biologist Jeff Christiansen explains the Seattle Aquarium's research into the world's third largest predatory sharks. 4/26, 4pm.
• Drysuit 101. The founder of Seasoft reveals the basics of staying warm in the cool waters here. 4/26, 4pm.

My small slice of this excitement unfolds April 25, from 10am–2pm. At Deep Ambitions, kids aged 12-18 can try scuba for free, make pointillist sand and stone art with Rogest and vote on who has the coolest job.

Just wait until I tell them about our lift-off from a six-story apartment building...

Tickets are $10, available at the door. More info here.

AIN'T MISBEHAVIN': FLOW IN PALAU

PALAU, Micronesia – Saki wears pink fins and carries a Hello Kitty slate. Her thick, waist-length pigtails swirl in the sea: sea urchin black at the roots, butterfly-fish blonde at the tips. This Carp Island Resort guide is tough and smart and funny. In fact, she one of the most amazing female divers I've met.

But, well, she is a team player from the land of bullet trains with professional packers. And I have some atavistic pioneer gene: bristly and independent as only a New World mutt can manage. The wagons should be circled only at last resort.

Strangely I understand Saki's "herd" impulse, even as I push back against it. I mountain-guided several summers high above tree line in the Cascades and Olympics. I quit after I had to Scotch-guard someone's armpit, because she was too lazy or fool to take off her own jacket for waterproofing. My onboard system is just not rigged for that much babysitting.

Saki's is, bless her. Once she even holds my hand to keep me right next to the safety sausage, as everyone's tanks rattle like ice cubes in a cocktail shaker.

The first time she gets distracted, I bolt, of course. And then, only then, does diving in Palau click for me.

About 50 feet from the group, I nose among old-growth coral, rocketing close to the reef, then swerving out to barrel roll like a manta ray. I can move and move I do, finally without risk of an amateur photographer kicking out my reg or sitting on my head. Even after Saki rounds us all up, finning towards the Blue Corner, the grace continues. Minutely adjusting my breath, I soar up the wall, anchor my reef hook, then let the current pivot me into position. I hang over the vertiginous ledge, staring out towards the Philippine Sea. And there I hang, head whiplashing to take in all the early morning shark action. Black tips, white tips, grey reefers: they muscle past in great sweeps, sometimes framed by a quiver of barracuda.

The sensation of being watched suddenly flares my nerves. I peek over my left shoulder, expecting a fresh throng of inflator-ignorant divers sprawled on the coral. Instead I spot a seven-foot Napoleon closing in, the wrasse's huge humphead and trippy acid-test patterns evoking the Magic Bus. The fish drifts closer and closer, its golf-ball-sized eye boring into my gumball baby blues. Just before impact, it veers. I sigh and stretch my tensed neck muscles. That's when I realize two black-tip sharks are lounging nearby, overbites almost on my shoulder, like thin-mustached, high-school burnouts outside a 7-11.

It all just … flows. And this, I realize, is the story I travelled here to find. Why Palau has so many strange ebbs of fate and beauty, such a close connection to "the zone".

I surface and, much to my surprise, Saki grins. "That was some good diving," she notes.

On this, at last, we agree.

YAYOI DROPS THE H-BOMB

Carp Island Resort, Palau, Micronesia – Where the shell path slices into the mangroves, the young woman glances back. “Where are you from?” she whispers, in English.

“Seattle. America,” I reply. “You?”

“Hiroshima.”

Air erupts from my lungs and I wrestle the vacuum into a noise like “oh.”

“You’ve heard of it?” she beams.

Yes, of course, I want to say. My people fought yours for these islands, bomber runs low and swift and sharp, planes cartwheeling into the peacock waters of Palau, snarling the jungle’s vines. The Japanese honeycombed the upraised limestone of the Rock Islands and stained the beaches orange with U.S. marines’ blood. Near Carp Island – where afternoon sun and hibiscus blossoms mellow the dive resort even further – our counties played out some of the Pacific theater's’s most gruesome moments. And then, to end it all, America’s B29s winged from nearby Tinian to flash final and bright over Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki. Little Boy and Fat Man froze shadows in stone. "Practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death," Radio Tokyo announcers said in a broadcast captured by Allied sources.

Those two atomic clouds – the only attacks with nuclear weapons in warfare’s history – killed at least 220,000 people, mainly civilians. But they also sparked the end of World War II, six days later, when Emperor Hirohito surrendered, declaring, “we must … suffer what is unsufferable” on August 15, 1945. The bombs’ justifiers speak of the millions saved by this capitulation. But I can’t stop picturing the kimono pattern, burned into a maiden’s shoulder – a girl perhaps about the age of Yayoi Hiraoka here.

Had I heard of Hiroshima? Yeah. Kinda.

I stare into her face, smiling and moon-bright. She’s roughly half my 33 years, I would guess, though it's hard to tell. Too young to feel the ache of all this history … or perhaps just young enough to think first and foremost of a stroll to the stone money quarry. We are two divers on a path of crushed shells. Does it really matter that her ancestors build this road to kill mine?

The debris of WWII craters Palau, and confronts me again and again. About 1,180 miles southeast of Okinawa, this Micronesian archipelago was earmarked as the capital of Japan’s overseas empire. They brought geishas, cinemas and sake houses to Koror, now a dusty ribbon of strip malls.

But it doesn’t matter much, because most tourists are divers – and some of the planet’s best descents lie offshore: the Blue Holes, Blue Corner and Peleliu Express. Palau sits at the nexus of three mighty currents, a condition that spawns close to 1,500 fish species alone. Sharks mingle with mantas, turtles, lionfish and even dugongs, the manatee-like sea cows. Flatworms ripple, gorgonian sea fans splay and jewel-bright mandarin fish hide their psychedelic patterns among staghorn corals. And in a brackish marine lake, the rare non-stinging mastigias jellyfish press their bubblegummy bodies against snorkelers. Small wonder the area’s been dubbed an Underwater Wonder of the World.

Yet planes and ships rust here too, soldiers’ bones often reduced to powder, almost indistinguishable from coral rubble. And a handful of people still search for answers, quickly, quickly now, before the Pacific dissolves all our history: the bloody and the bold together.

In the meantime, Yayoi and I follow the shell fragments through the mangrove swamp. Where the path meets lawn, just before Carp's sunrise cottages, we exchange bows and email addresses, even though we probably won't correspond.

The twain still met – and smiled.

On such a battlefield, that's triumph enough.

SECRET, SECRET, I'VE GOT A SECRET

PALAU, Micronesia – Eight divers or so load onto the Carp Island Resort launch. I am the only one who doesn't speak Japanese; I smile and nod a lot, inadequately.

Rainclouds loom, so I accept a yellow slicker. I'm from the Pacific Northwest. Of course I have serious rain gear. Can I use more in typhoony weather? Always. Plus, I live in the land of geek chic and haute polarfleece: looking nerdy is the norm... My companions aren't so convinced. Who can blame 'em? The thermometer's hovering around 80 degrees.

Except wind-chill soon slices away any comfort, even of the cold variety. Once the rain starts, it hoses sideways, thanks to the speed of the twin engines. That's when I notice the girl in hotpants. She hunches, early-stage hypothermic, trying to stretch a Baby-T over her knees and an expensive SLR camera, sans waterproof case.

Yeah, I give her the slicker. Show me the jerk who wouldn't? Then I help tuck in all her gear, which is big fun in carwash-style conditions.

"Domo arigato," she raps through castanet teeth.

And, for the first of a thousand times, I mentally append, "Mr Roboto," just like the ole STYX song. This soon proves to be real diplomacy challenge, as I have to suppress insipid giggles any time I'm thanked. And since most of Carp's clientele are Japanese, quite a lot of thanking goes down.

Good thing I hadn't yet seen this rock video, where the badbot smokes a cigarette after stomping a sandcastle. My hysteria might have sparked an international incident...