Take a journey through the wonders of Yap. From stone money, to cultural dances, to Yapese "highways", to traditional fishing and anciant mariners, you will be sure to experince the richness of Yapese life.
Yap is belived to have been settled by a seafaring people from the area today known as eastern Indonesia and the southern part of the Philippines sometime around 1500 B.C.
Yap is probably best known among non-divers as the Land of Stone Money. Up to 12 feet in diameter these massive stone discs rate, without competition, as the largest coins in the world.
The Yapese have managed to maintain their ancient culture better than anywhere else in Micronesia. The heritage and traditions of the Yapese people are carefully nourished to preserve the Micronesian way of life.
Bill Acker, founder of the Manta Ray Bay Resort and Yap Divers, is proud to share his love of Yap and diving with guests from all over the world. A resident of Yap for almost 30 years, Bill is eminently qualified to make your Micronesian dive experience one that you’ll never forget. Bill and his family own and operate the Manta Ray Bay Resort & Yap Divers.
Welcome to The Manta Ray Bay Resort. We are a small, 4-star resort located on the wonderful island of Yap in Micronesia. Enjoy your stay in our luxurious, individually themed rooms. Delight your tastes at our floating restaurant, the Mnuw Restaurant and Bar. Dive in to adventure with our expericed dive team. Relax into bliss at our Taro Leaf Spa. Welcome to paradise.
Our resort offers many different package and activities for everyone to enjoy the wonders of Yap. From our hotel & diving packages to island tours to kayak adventures to spa treatments, our resort offers packages individually tailored to you.
There are many special times to visit Yap and the Manta Ray Bay Resort, like Yap Day, MantaFest, and during the manta ray mating season. Plus, we have partnered with the best resort operators and vessels in the region to offer truly unique and luxurious experiences.
The Mnuw is the most unique restaurant and bar in Micronesia if not the world. She is a 170ft (55m) Phinisi schooner from Indonesia with 3 dining decks, 2 bars and her kitchen all on board.
The Manta Ray Bay Resort was built FOR divers, BY divers. Our harborside dive center, Yap Divers, has everything you’d expect from a PADI 5-star facility and SSI Platinum Dive Center, and so much more. Yap Divers is a full-service facility with modern boats, rental gear, dive shop, camera bays, gear rinse and storage.
The Taro Leaf Spa takes the best of everything that is Yapese to bring you an experience that will, relax, energize, invigorate, revitalize and harmonize you.
Come experience all that Yap has to offer. From exclusive, world-class diving to vibrant mangroves to pristine beaches to a fascinating history to a rich, anciant culture, Yap truly is a wonder to behold.
Serving only 1,000 divers a year, we offer our guests crowd-free dive sites and VIP service. Yap has a resident population of manta rays and several shallow cleaning stations where divers can see mantas year-round. And, Yap is more than just mantas! We have great blue water diving, shark diving, wall diving, critter diving, black water diving and large schools of big game fish!
Among the mangroves you will go were none can go but by kayak. There are no roads, no way to bring a powered boat in and no habitation, there is but you and nature. This is the perfect way to explore one of the few ecosystems on this planet that remains untouched by man.
Imagine looking over the side of the boat into ink blue water so clear that you can see fish swimming 100 feet below you. Imagine being on a boat 20 yards from the edge of the reef, looking across the turquoise colored lagoon to the verdant, green tropical island in the background. You cast your lure into the surf breaking on the edge of the reef and then boom – a huge black Giant Trevally comes from the surf line and attacks your wooden bait. The fight is on.
The Manta Ray Bay Hotel’s Concierge staff offer a complete range of land tours specifically designed to showcase the unique island culture of Yap. Everything from the famous stone money and stone money banks, to traditional thatched roof men’s houses, centuries old stone paths which are still used to connect the various villages, to the flora and fauna.
On Yap you can spend all day on a private beach with your partner, dive buddy or group in the village with no one else around. We arrange private beach trips, group events, parties and BBQs.
The Taro Leaf Spa takes the best of everything that is Yapese to bring you an experience that will, relax, energize, invigorate, revitalize and harmonize you.
Here you will find out the latest goings on in Yap, photo galleries of visiting pros and visitors alike. Plus, a library of wallpapers for your desktop and mobile devices.
Swimming with manta rays is a life-changing experience for many divers. Yap's Manta Ray Bay is one of the world's premier destinations for these encounters, providing scuba divers and snorkelers a rare chance to experience manta rays in their natural habitat.
Throughout the years we have been honored to host several top professional photographers and videographers. From Paul Tzimoulis to William "Bill" Macdonald. From Marty Snyderman to Andy Schumacher. From David Doubilet to David Fleetham plus many, many more. We are very honored to be able to share some of the images captured in Yap by these great friends.
Imagine the thousands of divers who have visited us over the years. Now imagine the wonderful memories they captured via photographs both above and below water. We want to share these with you and ask you to consider posting your memories of Yap and the Manta Ray Bay Resort & Yap Divers.
We know it can be a daunting task to book travel to Yap with diffeent time zones, the International Date Line and often confusing flight schedules. Let us help you make getting to Yap a warm, tropical breeze. Ask Bill!
Here you will find the latest information about the latest on flights to Yap. There are both international and regional carries currently servicing the island. And, for flight help you can always Ask Bill!
Welcome to Yap Caverns – our best wall diving, swim-throughs and macro shooting.
These photos were taken on one dive this afternoon when I hopped on a third-tank boat last-minute.
No matter how you do the Caverns, it’s usually good, and it generally gives you everything but the cleaning manta rays, from big to small.
I always drop down the wall and go deep first. At 30m there’s a coral head that is a cleaning station for sharks, turtles and big fish – it takes a bit of current to get the sharks to be active at it and today was just right.
Reef sharks in a vertical stall, mouth open holding a slow body swerve, is the show as the wrasses get in a clean.
I watched 4 grey reefs and a white-tip take turns cleaning with two massive barracuda circling in wait.
Had I been on wide angle, this would be a big fish post… but I wasn’t.
You know how it goes… roll in on macro and the big animal show is going off – tour the amphitheater on wide angle and a robust ghost pipe fish is in between a cleaning moray and an aggregation of reef shrimp.
Today was productive and it would have been regardless of the lens I chose.
Morays being cleaned is a common site, I had one in front of my lens and one behind my fin, both sticking way out of their rock holes with wrasse and shrimp doing their thing.
Mike pointed out this Dragon Wrasse, doing whatever Dragon Wrasse do. These guys don’t hold still and most of the time swim on one side and hardly look like a fish at all, not to mention they can be smaller than an inch.
I always check the anemones, there’s several good ones and they are usually home to a whole community of critters.
Porcelain crabs, ghost shrimp, anemone fish (adult and juveniles) are abound.
Your carpet anemone color choices are white with purple tips, blue with blue tips and green ones.
Sometimes these things are closed up with fish playing peek-a-boo offering different behavior opportunities to photograph, other times they are laying flat and covered with ghost shrimp.
Popcorn shrimp are found clinging to the tentacles, and reef shrimp can be found by looking underneath these things.
All over the walls and on sandy ledges are Moyer’s draggonettes, that look like Mandarinfish with a different color pattern.
Another solid find are Scorpion Leaf Fish – there’s one in almost every color here.
Today I came across 4 different leaf fish without trying – Mike gave me two and I found a couple while floating over the pinnacles.
Not all of them made a winning shot, one of them was smaller than my thumb, in a dark hole and facing away from me.
Once in a while you get a nice color fish that doesn’t absolutely match it’s background and you can bring home a nice leaf fish photo.
Other leaf fish shots from today look like reef wall with an eyeball in the center of the frame, their camouflage is impeccable.
Yap Caverns is a leaf-fish-rich dive.
You don’t have to wait around too much, the dive guides keep their rattle in their hand during the whole dive.
From 40 meters to your safety-stop there’s something to shoot – if you’re a fish person, this place can give you all the reasons to get into it.
Cleaning is going on everywhere making the behavioral photography strong if that’s your thing.
Thousands of Antheas and Flame Angels cover the walls dodging feeding Trevally.
Safety-stopping at the Caverns affords the opportunity to play around with these things until your computer is happy and you can surface for your hot tea, dry towel and fresh banana bread.
The theme of this post is “all from one tank” – over time Yap Caverns media makes for an impressive stack of shots, but coming back with something worth showing from a single tank is more of the visitor’s experience where there’s not seasons of photographs from the same site to choose from when sharing. For macro shooting, this is the site that offers the most subjects in one area.
I learned all of what I know about shooting fish and shooting macro at Manta Fest, our annual photography party where we learn from the top underwater professionals through workshops and one-on-0ne training at the Crow’s Nest bar. All levels of photogs get to participate in a photo contest with tens of thousands of dollars in prizes, everybody goes home with something! Learn more at – www.mantafest.com.