Clear blue water has greeted divers out on the reef. Before rolling in at southern dive sites we could see anemone fish 70+ feet below from inside the boat. Yap’s dive conditions have been pretty solid lately which everyone is enjoying.

Boats are rolling out steady all day and the photographers have not been shy about taking up Bill’s unlimited diving policy for Manta Fest. Only one diver is needed to send out a boat, and that gesture is has been tested.

So for everyone is having a good time and photography chatter is everywhere, on and off the boats. Meanwhile, in the water…

This is what the reef activity looks like these days, faces right up on the housings and award winning photographers doing what they do best. Everyone has a little bit different style and goes about getting their shots their own way.

This morning’s first dive, Frank went in without his camera and was doing some reef reconnaissance. One of the scores he found was one of the smallest nudibranchs we’ve seen… and in pro form, he called Marty over to snap a few shots before moving on to investigate another corral head.

I asked Frank what he thought about photographing in Yap and on the boat ride home he had this to say: “There’s a wide variety of sea life, from small nudibranchs to large fish such as sweet lips, napoleon wrasse, mantas and sharks. Here there are opportunities for all levels of photographers from beginner to advanced experts. The photo environment is diverse, you can start shooting at ten feet all the way down to 140 with a lot of fish and marine life at every depth. Yap offers something here for every photographer with any piece of equipment, from wide angle to macro.”

In the evenings the contest presenters have the opportunity to share their work with the entire resort on the big screen. Yesterday was Frank’s first presentation showing some of his recent projects.

Last night on the Mnuw, I also saw some laptops out with Adobe Bridge open and a  lot of thumbnails on the screen. I’ll be looking for some memory card contributions to post here very soon.

Right now the crew is out at Slow n Easy on a macro dive packing their memory cards with pipe fish, gobe, cleaner shrimp, octopus and all the reef life out at the local channel wall.

We haven’t peaked yet, the bigger half of the event is in route and arriving on Saturday, we’re still warming up.

This is today’s Yap status, clear water, lots of sea life, boats packed with pro’s and daily topside vacation fun.