Is Palau in the South Pacific or the North Pacific?

I've seen these ads that promote Palau as a paradise in the South
Pacific.
Is Palau in the South Pacific or the North Pacific?
(It's definitely north of the Equator.)

I guess the basic question would be, is the Equator the divider
between the South Pacific and the North Pacific?

In article <2daf7872.0403310046.6bff6ccc@posting.google.com >,
dj_google@daum.net (DJ Kim) wrote:

> I've seen these ads that promote Palau as a paradise in the South
> Pacific.

I think there is more than one paradise with that name, i think it means
"small Island"..........

Take out the "goes diving bit"
Dave Morgan @ Work in the UK :^)

Actually, Palau (Caroline Island group) is in the North Pacific but very
close to the Equator -- 7 degrees North of it -- if I'm not mistaken.
The same is true of Truk and the Marshalls -- all in the Northern
Hemisphere. Palau has very poor soil, mostly limestone, so it can't be
a paradise if you can't grow tropical fruit that people like to eat when
they arrive at an "island paradise." The tropical fruit has to be flown
in to Palau to please the tourists and it ain't cheap! In spite of all
this, you can buy a "story board" and take it home and hang it on your
living room wall. They have excellent wood carvers there and the people
of Palau are tough, intelligent people, sometimes referred to as "the
Jews of Micronesia." So don't go thinking you can pull the wool over
their eyes!

Pacific paradises are not what they're cracked up to be. I've seen
children in Fiji and Tonga with skin scars on their legs from scabees,
local dogs full of mange, scratching all the time -- poor little
things! And in Tonga at Va V'au, the local roads were put down with
crushed coral so local traffic creates clauds of choking dust that
leaves local taxi drivers with hacking coughs and severe respiratorial
ailements. And in Va V'au, a beautiful island with fijords and palm
trees, you have a local, out-of-control feral pig population that
forages all night long around the grounds of the hotel, keeping guests
awake snorting and just before you fall asleep, the roosters start
crowing and nearby church bells toll to summon the faithful to early
mass. And just before you enter the hotel dining room the chef is
having a shouting match with the help. And you call this paradise?
Actually, I rather like Va V'au because it is probably one of the few
places that still reek of a South Pacific Paradise that Sommerset Maughm
might have known and written about. No manicured, gated resorts like you
might have grown accostomed to in Barbados!

But work has to get done, beds made, meals prepared for the touring
groups who bring in needed cash to fuel local economies, dive masters
have to take people out for dives, etc. The choices at meal time are
often limited to tough or chewy NZ lamb (or mutton). Great dining
probably doesn't go with great diving anyway but wouln't it be nice to
have a bottle of Dom Perignon after a day's diving? On my second trip
to Palau I heard of some rich Japanese who came there to dive and
brought along Dom Perignon to imbibe between dives! They were probably
crazy anyway! Well, maybe a glass would do fine. And how about some
nice French brie or chevre? An Aussie dive master working in PNG had
the temerity to tell me that his country had brie or chevre as good as
France! Well, they don't! I tried both!

People don't necessarily want to work in tropical climes (except the
Filippinos) there is constant turnover and good jobs are really scarce
with rival ethnic groups in the Solomons running around naked with guns,
fighting over jobs. Welcome to Honiara! But it is one of the few
places where a delicious mud crab is served (at a Chinese restaurant)
don't miss it! Now, the mud crab is as big as the dinner plate it is
served on but they are mostly eaten by locals from Fiji to PNG. In
Vanuatu, I once at Fruit Bat, cooked like boeuf Bourgogone. The name
was "rusette" or some such name. Delicious! In Port Vila. You may
have seen them, hanging upside down in the trees in that part of the
world....the "flying fox." It tasted like chicken. Don't miss it!

Also, have you ever been to any tropical island where you could cut the
humidity with a knife and found the a/c in your hotel room working all
that well and not likely to give you a cold? My experience is that the
a/c units manage to chill the air but don't take out the humidity which
can be a recipe for pneumonia. Also, there are occasional power
outages, no a/c., and you can't recharge your strobes and sometimes
local generators on remote islands run power that has surges that wreck
your charging equipment.

Also, living in the tropics can be very boring, the sun comes up and
goes down at roughly the same time all year long. But once you're
underwater in a place like Papua New Guinea and see the biodiversity
that is so overwelming with 600 different corals and prolific fish life
to stare at, it seems like a paradise indeed!

DJ Kim wrote:

> I've seen these ads that promote Palau as a paradise in the South
> Pacific.
> Is Palau in the South Pacific or the North Pacific?
> (It's definitely north of the Equator.)
>
> I guess the basic question would be, is the Equator the divider
> between the South Pacific and the North Pacific?

"ben bradlee" <up2u2figr@NoWay.zip> wrote in message
news:dKSdnQE4oLm2WPfdRVn-ug@centurytel.net...
>
> "DJ Kim" <dj_google@daum.net> wrote in message
> news:2daf7872.0403310046.6bff6ccc@posting.google.c om...
> > I've seen these ads that promote Palau as a paradise in the South
> > Pacific.
> > Is Palau in the South Pacific or the North Pacific?
> > (It's definitely north of the Equator.)
> >
> > I guess the basic question would be, is the Equator the divider
> > between the South Pacific and the North Pacific?
>
> The equator is not the dividing line between North America and South
> America. The equator is the dividing line between the North Pole and the
> South Pole - but that may be coincidence.
>


According to a map I have, Palau is bordered on the east and south by the
North Pacific Ocean. Palau is bordered on the west by the Philippine Sea.
The north could be either.

Dave Morgan wrote:
>
> In article <2daf7872.0403310046.6bff6ccc@posting.google.com >,
> dj_google@daum.net (DJ Kim) wrote:
>
> > I've seen these ads that promote Palau as a paradise in the South
> > Pacific.
>
> I think there is more than one paradise with that name, i think it means
> "small Island"..........

In the language used in Malaysia and Indonesia 'pulau' means small
island, as in Pulau Tioman, Pulau Redang, or Pulau Perhentian. But the
western most island grouping in the Caroline Islands is called Palau,
and THAT is really paradise. (Despite the fact that the 'Bali Hai'
sequence for the musical 'South Pacific' was shot on Pulau Tioman.)

Steve Kramer
Chiang Mai, Thailand
http://www.photoenvisions.com

--
"The real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new lands,
but in seeing with new eyes!" Marcel Proust

ben bradlee wrote:
> "DJ Kim" <dj_google@daum.net> wrote in message
> news:2daf7872.0403310046.6bff6ccc@posting.google.c om...
>
>>I've seen these ads that promote Palau as a paradise in the South
>>Pacific.
>>Is Palau in the South Pacific or the North Pacific?
>>(It's definitely north of the Equator.)
>>
>>I guess the basic question would be, is the Equator the divider
>>between the South Pacific and the North Pacific?
>
>
> The equator is not the dividing line between North America and South
> America. The equator is the dividing line between the North Pole and the
> South Pole - but that may be coincidence.

North and South America are continents. The very nature of a continent is such that
they are divided by tangible geographic features, such as a narrow isthmus or an
ocean that completely isolates one from the next, rather than imaginary lines like an
Equator (Asia and Europe apparently being some kind of aberation). The oceans, OTOH,
aren't particularly divided by anything they just get narrow here and there, and
north and south are merely geographic descriptions. The Equator is the dividing line
between the northern and southern hemispheres, and there's no coincidence about it.
The poles aren't divided at all. In fact, they happen to be connected, though they're
separated by several continents and oceans .

That said, "South Pacific" is very definitely a useful description that will almost
certainly conjure the proper image in people's minds when you are telling them about
a trip to Palau. They probably won't know where Palau is and may not know where
Micronesia is, so telling them you're planning a dive trip to the North Pacific will
probably confuse them, even if that's really what you're doing. It's a good thing
those of us on the east coast do a lot of our diving in the Caribbean, because
telling people you're spending you're winter vacation in the North Atlantic might get
you committed.

--
Steve

The above can be construed as personal opinion in the absence of a reasonable
belief that it was intended as a statement of fact.

If you want a reply to reach me, remove the SPAMTRAP from the address.

In article <406AE64E.F1550E94@pop.cybernex.net>, dkessler@pop.cybernex.net
(Daniel Kessler) wrote:

> Also, living in the tropics can be very boring, the sun comes up and
> goes down at roughly the same time all year long.

My god........lets all flock to the North Sea......

As for mud crabs, you need a shower when you have finished your meal, what
a mess.......
On Lissenung Island you get them twice a week, see WWW.lissenung.com

Take out the "goes diving bit"
Dave Morgan @ Work in the UK :^)

Daniel Kessler <dkessler@pop.cybernex.net> wrote in message news:<406AE64E.F1550E94@pop.cybernex.net>...
> Actually, Palau (Caroline Island group) is in the North Pacific but very
> close to the Equator -- 7 degrees North of it -- if I'm not mistaken.

Never mind the number of degrees from the equator, Palau is definitely
in the MIDDLE Pacific, in region known as Micronesia.

The French Polynesia, consisting of FIVE major island groups, including
the best-known islands of Tahiti and Bora Bora, are in the Society
Islands. There are HUNDREDS of islands in these South Pacific groups
of islands.

Then there are the Samoa islands in the South Pacific that are not
part of the French Polynesia.

The Cook Islands (formerly New Zealand ruled), and the Australe islands
of French Polynesia, are South of the other South Pacific islands.

I am somewhere between the Cook Islands and the French Polynesian
islands NOW!

Paradise is a state of the MIND. You can even find Paradise (and Hell
too) in the State of Michigan.

-- Bob.

"Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8fb7380b.0404021032.61ba2413@posting.google.c om...
> Daniel Kessler <dkessler@pop.cybernex.net> wrote in message
news:<406AE64E.F1550E94@pop.cybernex.net>...
>
> Paradise is a state of the MIND. You can even find Paradise (and Hell
> too) in the State of Michigan.

But apparently you can't quit your addiction to rec.scuba (.locations) when
on vacation. Paradise must be escaping your state of mind. Too bad for all
of us.

Reef Fish <Large_Nassau_Grouper@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>Why would I have to wait? I can IGNORE you ANYTIME.

Your track record suggests otherwise, Bob.

--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com