Yap Island, Micronesia
Not many people know where this is..."Yap?" Yap. "Yap?" Yep, Yap. That's pretty much how it goes when you start off on the subject. Yap is in the South Pacific Ocean, Micronesia, Palau, Guam part of the world. It's a 16-mile long kite-shaped island that is surrounded by a barrier reef.
Yap Diving
All underwater photos and video were taken using a Wingman HD.
As far as documenting and underwater souvenir cameras go, it's working its way onto the must have vacation list for the price.
Yap offers an assortment of diving that spans everything from hovering in 12' of water watching wildlife, to riding the current in big blue water along the outer reef wall.
Floating with the current below stacks of barracuda, schools of parrot fish, sharks, a huge grouper and all the little stuff in the rocks and corral.
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Our first trip to the Manta site turned up nothing, but our second turned up exactly what you'd want to see... different behaviors, close interaction, great photo ops and multiple animals.
You can get as much or as little Manta action as you want here. During our week, we caught shows of different Manta behaviors - mating season courting interaction on the reef and we had Mantas swimming overhead in deep water.
At the southernmost tip of the island's reef is the Yap caverns, a swim-tour through the reef wall. Some of the most brilliant corral is right under the boat at the caverns site buoy.
Diving the caverns is like a maneuver course into the rock wall, through tunnels, up over huge corral formations, down to sand bottom, into another tunnel and eventually, you pop out on the reef wall again.
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By the third day, we all were on the Yap vibe and our group had a pace of our own.
You can't help but to ride the laid back energy and unwind here.
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You can dive big water, or keep it inside the reef. It just depends on what you want to see. Some of the best wildlife spectating is the easiest diving.
One of the features of diving Yap is that there's no pace to keep up with and the diving turns into what you want and feel, it's your vacation, all you have to do is ask, they'll run a single-diver boat if there's something that you want to do.
There's some optional dives that you can sign up for; Mandarin fish, night dive and the shark feed. The Mandarin fish dive is a 15' hover over finger corral waiting for little fish couples to court. A brilliant and very brief show that happens every sunset.
Photo by: Ray Bullion
This is a spectacular show with a climatic progression.
The activity starts out by jumping into the water with 4 to 5 foot black tips circling at the surface... and drop down to about 40' where the shark snack bar is about to open.
Once the dinner bell has rung, sharks multiply out of the blue and circle at every depth.
Sharks of all sizes cruise in and out of our group for about 15 minutes.
Once the bait box hits the water the energy spikes like an M-80 went off in the room... and all sharks go to condition orange at once. This is a first hand shark behavior spectacle, you can feel the energy excite.
When the first piece of food gets out of the box, stand by for swirling balls of mouth-snapping sharks. The whole group goes off at once, like a switch was flipped. Photographer Ray Bullion has some adventurous HD video from our encounter as well as a tooth scratch on a camera housing.
Once a few tuna heads have been consumed and nobody's pushing the food vibe, the sharks go back to condition orange and maintain reef patrol. The whole time was incredible photo ops with some spikes in the action. During our dive, there were a few sharks that mistook cameras for food and the action was intense.
There's some exciting diving to do while you're here and the opportunity to capture personal video and photo library gems. The action was good for us in the waters of Yap.
On the Island
We had some full days during our stay. Manta mating dance in the morning, followed by the shark feed - then after showers and lunch, an island land cultural tour.
WWII planes, guns, landing strips and war relics are still in the places where they were built, or disabled.
Yap has it's place in war history as an island that was fiercely fought over, with debatable strategic value.
Our drive included a historical tour with the people and stories behind what we were going to see. Japanese aircraft, anti-aircraft weapons and shot down American fighters.
Everything is kept as is with the exception of the jungle, it's groomed to preserve the historic value.
War planes aren't the only thing to find in the jungles. Some wreckage of the Pan Am commercial airline flight that crashed here is still where it landed.
As we went from site to site, we were passed out newspaper articles and declassified military documents about each island site.
There's interesting history in Yap and the opportunity to see and learn about it.
There's plenty of post-diving activities to participate in during your trip.
Our group went home with a little bit of everything during our stay.
Our cultural experience was a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Everyone was happy about having opted for the group tour.
Manta Ray Bay Hotel and Yap Divers
This is where you vacation when you want exotic warm water diving, 5-star amenities and personal service at a vacation pace.
Manta Ray Bay Hotel and Yap Divers is a dive and cultural tourism resort with a spa, floating restaurant, brewery and movie theater.
Family owned and operated by Bill and his wife Patricia, Yap Divers is also the original operator and creator of the dive map.
The dive pace is kick-back and flexible. Our group would have a chat and change up dive sites based on the conditions and our moods.
There is time before and after diving, the boat rides are short and even a 3-tank day leaves you with the whole afternoon to relax, hang at the pool, go through photos, go to the bar or restaurant... even get a massage.
The whole operation is expertly run, dive ops handle everything for you, except your personal gear. Everyone has a wet/dry gear cubicle and as long as your gear is in it, it's setup and loaded on the boat next to your dive buddy's.
The waters of Yap are a target-rich environment for photographers. The resort includes a well-stocked dive shop, photographer benches with power strips and lockers as well as a photo pro room.
In the water, Bill and his dive guides point out creatures and their behavior... and if you wanted, you could hand them a wildlife wish-list on paper and they could check it off in the order was written down.
Photo by: Ray Bullion
Everything is steps from your room, the dive and photo shop, boat dock, pool, restaurant and main hotel lobby. It's a very convenient and stress free operation.
The resort is setup for ease-of-diving, designed by and built for divers. Drying racks are next to the gear rinse tanks and camera sinks are size enough for professional cameras with the biggest strobe setup.
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During our week, we were able to experience some of the magic that Yap has to offer underwater, through their history and culture, the island itself and it's welcoming people.
Yap has zero crime, no streetlights, more nature than people and their ancient traditions are still practiced.
Manta Ray Bay Hotel offers fun and exciting diving, expectation exceeding amenities, a cultural experience with personal service and a friendly feel.
Get Involved
The way to best put this together is with another destination. Once you're all the way over to that side of the world, the most value is to hit two places. Palau, then Yap is very popular because you get the best of both worlds. In Palau you will get incredible diving, tour the rock islands and be hosted well with a lot of people. When you get to Yap, you can change the dive pace, downshift into vacation gear with personal service and the cultural experience...
Inquire with Robert at the dive shop, he's our resident Micronesia dive travel group leader and point person for setting up your next dive vacation. There's only a few dive shops that are offering sweet deals on Yap packages and other Micronesia destinations, this is how to get the most value out of your dive vacation dollars.
posted by www.jldiveandphoto.com @ 9:18 AM
