With good weather in his bags, travel journalist Frank Schneider made his way back to Manta Ray Bay Resort in Yap. In contrast to last year when he did a piece for Germany’s “tauchen“ magazine, he returned as one in four supervising professionals and jury member for the international shoot-out, which is co-sponsored by mares, World of Diving, tauchertraum, Pelican and Henderson.

While Frank was still recovering from the long-wound travel to the tiny paradise that Yap is, his colleague Tim Rock and some guests were already on their way to a cleaning station in Mi’l Channel, which had been only discovered in January. The first trip of the day got both professionals and amateurs four manta rays, which came as close as one arm-length. Without a shadow of a doubt, every photographer suffered from mild cramps from pushing the trigger way too often. The second dive brought two more of the elusive flying carpets. Not much of a surprise that Frank got onto a boat in a heartbeat and still got to a respectable 4 hours bottom time the same day. Some photographic treats from the first day can be seen on the individual facebook sites of Tim Rock and Frank Schneider. Further information: www.mantafest.com, www.mantaray.com