Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in Volume 7 of B.H. Magazine, order your copy now.
There are a few places left on Earth where luxury tourism is still figuring itself out. And then there’s Palau. We’ll forgive you if you can’t even point to it on a map. The tiny Micronesian country is a scattered constellation of over 500 limestone islands in the remote western Pacific – sheer-sided and draped in thick, jade-green jungle – and is 90 per cent water, long revered by no-frills divers and marine biologists.
Those expecting welcome cocktails, a concierge, and a thread count worth debating over a fine-dining feast have largely ignored it. And rightly so, because they don’t exist.
But that’s changing. Slowly, cautiously, and on Four Seasons’ terms. At least on the water. The Four Seasons Explorer Palau is, in essence, a scouting mission. Sailed across from the Maldives in 2023, this 11-cabin expeditionary catamaran is whetting the appetite for the Pacific’s last frontier, quietly sussing consumer demand before the brand commits to a bricks-and-mortar presence later this decade.
For now, this is the only way to experience Palau at such a level, and for those who are precious about service but less so about the hard product, it’s undeniably the more interesting way. There are no flailing snorkellers clashing fins in the shallows of Palau’s hall-of-fame dive sites. No floating full moon party boats thudding bass across the lagoons. Wherever the anchor is dropped, the bay is yours. The manoeuvrability of this property makes the access feel exclusive – effortless, even – and your time valued.
Getting to Palau has historically been a logistical headache wrapped in a budget blowout. It’s still not cheap – prices are quoted in USD, and they’re not messing around – but the access story has shifted for Australians, who can now tap direct weekly Qantas flights out of Brisbane. That alone changes the calculus from “one day” to “maybe this year”.
Onboard, the rooms are impressively sized for a modest boat, and dressed in the kind of quiet, tactile comfort Four Seasons does best. Crisp, super-king linen, and soft, calming tones. You forget you’re on the ocean until you step outside and remember this is, at its core, a glorified dive boat. And that, as you’ll soon realise, is the whole point. The gym is non-existent. Don’t expect a jacuzzi. Morning yoga is wedged between sunloungers on a deck still damp from the morning hose-down. These are not criticisms. Expectations just need to be calibrated, because this expeditionary vessel is catering to adventure; it’s not a superyacht anchored around aperitivos. The locations change daily. The itinerary, if you want it to be, is jam-packed.
And the diving. Well, that’s why we’re all here. If you’ve plundered the underwater worlds of the Maldives, Raja Ampat, and the Philippines, this is where you’ll next find yourself. And, after all that, you’ll realise the FS Explorer is the most effortless way you’ll ever slip beneath the surface. The frictionless diving experience, both in practice and quality, will certainly ruin all future expectations from your first day on board. Snorkelling gets its fair share of the itinerary, but I wouldn’t be coming here for a week without at least an appetite to try a dive at some point.
Every piece of gear is prepped and waiting at your station. Wetsuit rinsed, hung, and dried. Tanks filled. Masks cleaned. Gauges checked. All you have to decide is whether the nearby dive site tickles your fancy for the day, which it almost certainly will. If it doesn’t, you can dabble in up to three dives per day, included in the nightly rate. Most mornings, you barely finish your coffee before you’re rolling off the tender into the balmy, 30-degree water.
Plonked on the aft deck’s sunlounger one afternoon, cold Corona sweating in hand, a twilight tropical shower sweeps across a beach just out of our reach. No one’s allowed to set foot on that beach, I’m subsequently told – the conservation rules here aren’t suggestions; they’re law. Misty clouds hang low over the palms, and then the rain comes sideways in silver sheets.
Before you arrive, you sign the Palau Pledge – a commitment stamped into your passport, promising to tread lightly on these islands, through these waters, between schools of pelagic fish, and to find joy in their natural state. It’s not performative; the country means it. And floating here, watching the weather roll over a shoreline that a resort footprint hasn’t yet flattened, you understand why that is, and what the FS Explorer is here to achieve.
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Mecherchar & The Rock Islands
Your first view of the Rock Islands comes from the tender, and on day one, it’s the one that sticks. Hundreds of mushroom-shaped limestone formations, impossibly green, rise from water so clear you'd swear someone forgot to render it. The four-deck Explorer sits anchored in their lee, where the water flattens to glass. Beneath the surface at the nearby Ngerchong Reef – our first dive of the week – the coral is among the best preserved on Earth. This spot is genuinely, incomprehensibly pristine on a global scale. Turtles play in the shallows while lionfish lurk under the coral umbrellas. At the adjacent German Channel, Palau’s population of manta rays cruises through for pit stops at “cleaning stations”, where smaller fish pick parasites off the car-sized animals in an underwater highway that peaks with the tides. We just float here, kneeling in the sand, mouth slightly open, burning through our tank in bewilderment.
Ngeskill
The sound of the anchor chain grinding upwards serves as our alarm clock some mornings. Not every morning, but it is for this one. By breakfast, the Explorer has already slipped east from Mecherchar through the outer fringes of the Rock Islands toward Ngkesill, and we’re playing catch-up with a coffee, banana pancakes, and a briefing card. First up: a snorkel at Rose Garden, where soft corals gently sway in the current. The afternoon, however, is all about Shark City – and incredibly, despite the name, it is one of the most relaxed places to learn to dive.
Those without an Open Water certification can get a taste of diving with a one-on-one scuba experience alongside the boat’s dive chief. You’ll learn the basics on the beach before descending to a modest 12 metres, onto the bay’s sandy floor. Dozens of black-tip reef sharks pass overhead, their silhouettes cutting across the sun’s glare piercing through the surface. It's shallow enough to feel safe, close enough to feel real, and calm enough to catch the dive bug that brings most here.
Koror
Palau’s main harbour, somewhat surprisingly, hides some of the most culturally layered dive sites in the country. Just 10 minutes from Koror, at an achievable fifteen metres deep, lies the Jake Seaplane – an Aichi E13A reconnaissance aircraft, flown by the Imperial Japanese Navy (dubbed “Jake” by the Allies), ditched here in the early 1940s after engine failure shortly after takeoff. It's one of the best-preserved Second World War wrecks in the world, resting upright on a coral plateau, basically intact, entirely encrusted, yet easily recognisable. We swim under it, peek inside it, and examine the unique critters and fish that have created unlikely homes in its well-preserved fuselage.
Later that afternoon, Koror’s Chandelier Cave delivers a genuinely approachable cave dive on the harbour's fringes – not too deep, with breathable air pockets every few dozen metres to break up the darkness for first-timers. It’s cold, clear, and spookily disorientating, yet a uniquely rewarding challenge. Back on land, a cultural tour of Airai Village and a Palauan dinner – piglet on a spit, the works – rounds out the most intriguing stop on the itinerary, and probably the fullest.
Ulong Island
After threading through the eastern Rock Islands and past Lover's Arch, the Explorer anchors off Ulong Island on the outer fringes of the southern archipelago. The island’s nearby channel – of the same name – is the dive everyone talks about: a natural funnel where the lagoon's shallow waters rush in and out of the deep blue with the tides. We descend to about 15 metres at the mouth, hook onto the reef, inflate our BCDs, and just hang there like a kite in the aquatic breeze. Thirty-plus metres of visibility. The wall tumbles hundreds of metres below, plunging sharply into darkness.
Pelagics cruise past with pace, breaking apart massive schools of silver fish flickering in the light. Then, on the precipice of high tide, we let go. The full force of the inbound current carries us hundreds of metres through the channel, past enormous rose garden coral beds, fierce coral trout holding position, ready for a turf war, and grey reef sharks doing laps, monitoring the situation with obvious intent. A core memory kind of dive.
Peleliu
The mood shifts when we finally anchor near Peleliu. This tiny island was the site of one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific, and a morning cycle down its only palm-tree-lined road makes that history impossible to ignore. We pause at the monuments on Orange Beach, where American Marines took heavy losses to capture the shoreline, and inspect the ruins of a Japanese fuel bunker littered with relics, ordnance, and strewn aircraft parts.
Driving along the airstrip – the crux of the American campaign to capture the island – and past burnt-out tank wrecks half-reclaimed by jungle, we reach the destroyed bunker of the Japanese Air Command. What stays with you is how completely the vegetation has swallowed everything. The island was stripped bare during the fighting; now it's dense and green, growing over the wreckage as if trying to forget it. Only 10 per cent of the tens of thousands of unexploded munitions left behind have been rendered safe by aid workers, so the importance of staying on the approved paths is soberingly reinforced by the guides at every turn.
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At AU$5,000 a night, full board, with up to three dives a day included, the Four Seasons Explorer is not a casual proposition. It's the only way to experience Palau at its peak, and for those eager to explore one of the last corners of the underwater world before the rest catch on, the exclusivity checks out. For others, it's simply too steep – particularly when the weekly Qantas flights, however convenient, mean you're committing to seven nights minimum, turning the budget blowout from a stretch into a controlled demolition.
The food deserves praise. It’s genuinely exceptional – creative, varied, and remarkable given the remoteness. Over a week, you won’t eat the same meal twice, and the Maldivian influence – where most of the crew hail from – in both the kitchen and the wider hospitality offering gives the experience a lingering warmth.
The wine list, however, lets it down. Options by the glass are virtually non-existent, and when the more approachable bottles of red wine sell out – which they do – the next option north of US$350 sparks a nightly debate over dinner. You pick your battles, so for us, the more approachable Aussie Chardonnay became the recurring hero of our stay. That, and the rising Australian dollar against the US dollar.
But none of that changes the fundamental pitch. Palau is still figuring out what luxury tourism looks like within its waters, and the ambitious Four Seasons Explorer is writing the compelling first draft. Just remember: Palau doesn’t need you. Perhaps that’s exactly why you should go.
