The Island of Yap

Yap is a lush tropical island located just 9 degrees north of the equator (9.5557° N, 138.1399° E). Unlike many South Pacific islands, Yap is an uplifted portion of the Asian Continental Shelf. It is surrounded by a broad shallow lagoon and nearly 90 miles of the barrier reef.

Long before Yap became famous in the diving community for its Manta Rays, it was known as the Land of Stone Money. The huge disks of stone, some over 12 feet (3.5 meters) in diameter are still used today in major transactions. Our land tours will take you into villages with stone money banks as well as traditionally constructed men’s meeting houses called “faluw”.

Yap Island and History Tour

The dances of Yap tell stories and relate the history of the island. By learning the dances, children learn about the ancient heritage of their people. Dances are performed every week, and Manta Ray Bay Hotel can arrange a tour for you to witness them and see a bit of village life.

Yapese traditions are still taught to all children. The islanders are determined to ensure that their culture does not succumb to westernization. While the island has modern facilities, many Yapese still live an idyllic traditional lifestyle.

Every village has a Men’s House constructed of large logs, bamboo, and thatch where visitors from other villages who have strayed too far to reach home before dark can spend the night. The men meet in the evening to tell stories and educate the village boys in the arts of fishing, sailing and crafts.

We were fortunate to have our good friend, Mr. Ken Kurtis from Hollywood, California back in Yap recently. This was Ken’s 6th visit and he brought several of his best customers with him. Here is an excerpt from his latest newsletter:

Bill,

We had a great week (ten days actually with all the travel time) diving in Yap. Warm water, great weather (the only rain we saw – except for the final day there when we weren’t diving – was always between midnight and 6AM), wonderful animal encounters, fantastic friends at Manta Ray Bay Hotel (still my favorite diving resort in the whole world), and a good time was had by all.

Here’s an easy way of thinking about how special Yap is by looking at these four images from our dives on Thursday:

Dive 1 – Valley of the Rays @ 10:11AM:

Dive 2 – Vertigo shark feed @ 11:46AM:

Dive 3 – Gilman Wall @ 2:18PM

Dive 4 – O’Keefe Island @ 7:50PM

This is a collection of animals that most divers would be happy to see over the course of an entire week. We saw them in a space of less than nine hours on a single day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You’ve got to go to Yap.

I’ll be working on the trip report and the pictures (and maybe a video too) and will send those to you separately, hopefully towards the end of the week. In the meantime, here are a dozen more images from our wonderful week in Yap: This Week (in pictures) at Reef Seekers.

Every diver will have their favorite dive site or most memorable dive.  But being as fortunate as I am to be working at the Manta Ray Bay Resort here in Yap, I feel I am spoiled for choice.  But still, as spoiled as I am, I still have my favorite dive site.  And for me it has to be Vertigo…by miles!  Located on the Northwest side of the island, it is always protected from the wind and thus is good to dive pretty much all of the time.  It is easy to get to as well, just a quick dart through the German channel and you are pretty much there.

For me, I love to dive where I have a wall on one side and the blue on the other and of course good visibility is a must.  Vertigo offers all three.  The coral is mainly hard coral, but the wall just drops and drops, seemingly to infinity.  The visibility is endless, easily over 100ft, so you get a great view whether you are looking up or down, left or right.  But for me, the blue is the most impressive.  It is such a rich hue of blue, it’s hard to pull your eyes from it.  And of course from the blue comes the amazing, wonderful sharks.  One minute there is nothing and then you can just make out something moving towards you and then there it is, one, two then three and then over a dozen sharks.  Before long they are curiously moving in for a closer look.

Vertigo is  a paradise for divers fascinated with sharks.  The main visitors to Vertigo  are the grey reef, black tip and white tip sharks but we have also seen Silkies and Scalloped Hammerheads.  If you are lucky you may even get to see the grouper that lurks deep down in the depths.  Now I’m not one for exaggerating, but it is at least 10 feet in length.  There are also literally thousands of colorful tropical fish living up near the surface so this is a dive with a little bit of everything – including lots of sharks.

Another reason Vertigo is my favorite place to dive is because it’s where Bill Acker took me as a dive student for my open water course.  And on only my third dive had me roll off the back of the boat and land in the middle of at least 30 sharks and in one instant took 10 years off my life with the shock!