Story & Photos by Tim Rock Last nite a new guest who calls himself Santa Claus had a nice birthday aboard the Mnuw. Sporting a long, white Santa-like beard it is easy to see why he has that moniker. Today Santa got the presents as he was circled by mantas at the new cleaning station...

Die Putzerstation hat Schuld: Fünf Tage Mantas non-stop in gerade einmal 4 bis 10 Meter Tiefe sorgen für klare Prioritäten und Tauchgänge der Kategorie 80 Minuten plus. Bei wirklich jedem der Tauchgänge waren die fliegenden Teppiche der Meere zu sehen, manchmal gleich fünf auf einmal. Nur nachmittags, wenn die Rochen üblicherweise weniger aktiv sind, ging...

I'd say it's all the cleaning station's fault: Five days of constant manta encounters take their too, especially if they take place in between 12 and 30 ft  depth and allow bottom times of 80+ minutes. Only in the afternoons, when the rays tend to be less active, the boats went out to different spots...

The arrival of a lot more guests for week 2 of Manta Fest saw a few more boats leaving the docks

Tim Rock has loaded some of the galleries of the first week of Manta Fest 2011 online. CLICK HERE to see it. [caption id="attachment_1075" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Nudibranchs, Slow & Easy Dive Ste, Yap"][/caption]

Lee Webber from MDA in Guam is here and has written a nice column about his Manta Fest week. [caption id="attachment_1058" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="New Cleaning Station"][/caption]

By Tim Rock So far in the first week of MANTA FEST we've had some great manta luck, seeing them daily since Manta Fest kicked into gear 5 days ago. On Day 4, we had as many as five mantas at the new cleaning station. [caption id="attachment_1058" align="aligncenter" width="800"] New Cleaning Station[/caption] The sharks were...

Unterwasserfotografen sind schon eine besondere Spezies... „Also, wir hatten ja gestern unsere Mantas, lasst uns einfach zu den Haien wechseln“ - so der Grundtenor nach dem Frühstück am Anleger der Yap Divers. Gesagt, getan. Eine halbe Stunde später rollten Gäste und Foto-Profis bei „Vertigo“ über Bord und landeten im Handumdrehen in einer Gruppe von rund...

Underwater photographers are one of a kind... “Well, we got our mantas yesterday, now let's move on to the sharks“, was the general opinion on the jetty in the morning. Said and done. Half an hour later guests and photo hosts plunged into the water at Vertigo and into a group of around 20 grey...

MantaFest Shoot-Out - 28.08.2011 - Tag Eins „Endlich da!“ Mit gutem Wetter und natürlich mit mares-Equipment im Gepäck kam Reisejournalist Frank Schneider (u.a. tauchen) nach einem Jahr zurück ins Manta Ray Bay Resort nach Yap. Diesmal allerdings als Workshop-Betreuer zum Unterwasserfoto-Wettbewerb MantaFest. Als Frank noch mit dem „Ankommen“ beschäftigt war, zog es Berufskollegen Tim Rock...

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,...

Dear Friends, I have just received the following from Gisela and Carsten Kaufman who were in Yap shooting a feature documentary on the manta rays of the world.  The Yap portion featured Dr. Kathy Townsend, the Lead Scientist for Project Manta at the University of Queensland. We haven’t seen the film yet but these folks...