Day two of the girl’s Yap dive adventure kicked off with a smile of a sunrise on a private boat loaded with Nitrox, lunch and two of Manta Ray’s most experienced dive guides. Sunshine, calm water and the whole reef to yourself, this is Monday in Yap. Yap is where you dive rich tropical water with just your boat group. It’s still the untouched paradise island where you can get in the water without a crowd and stay down as long as you want. The only plan was to leave the dock, be prepared for anything and have a good time. Today I wanted to show the ladies Yap’s clear blue water and rich coral walls. Alex and Mike took us out to the Philippine Sea and headed south to our first site at Big Bend. This week we’re making a point about the diving – there’s more to Yap than mantas. The barrier reef offers sheer walls, sloping reefs, channels, caverns and a mix of interesting topography in clear water with lots of life. At Big Bend we rolled into triple digit visibility with mild current. This wall dive gave the girls an introduction to big water Yap diving and we found ourselves having a Mares and Suunto photo shoot at 100+ feet in the first 10 minutes of our dive. Both Suunto D6’s were set pretty conservatively and were doing their job keeping things in check as we drifted south over and under brilliant coral formations. We had a lot of light and could see the surface detail from way down the reef wall. Along the dive we came across napoleon wrasse, white tip reef sharks, schools of reef fish, anemones, snapper, jacks and explored some canyons that extend into the reef as far as the breakers. We spent an hour or so as a group, then Alex and Margo went high on the reef and Stephanie and I stayed down the wall for a bit and we finally kicked into the blue on a safety stop to be greeted by blue skies on the surface. A little sun and swim time was spent with hot tea and cake before we headed north for some channel drifting. On our boat ride Stephanie was showing off some Suunto technology and played back our dive profile before modifying some settings for the next dive, those D6’s are pretty slick. Next stop was Yap Corner where M’il Channel opens up to the clear blue. We hit it on the last hour of incoming tide with just enough current to drift from the open water to the ridge, deep inside the lagoon. As soon as you roll in we had a school of chevron barracuda and black snappers getting herded by Go-Pro’s and popping strobes from my rig. There’s a lot of life in M’il, big and small, surrounded by rich coral walls. We got into sharks, turtles, eels, a ton of fish and had a general good time. There’s a lot of gear chatter going on topside with this latest Mares delivery – from the wetsuits, to the fins and even Steph’s optional bc pocket. I’ve been checking out their hybrid pro tech bc’s since they unpacked them. They came out so compact I had to ask what it was at first. The ladies are impressed with their comfort and that they fit so well for a unisex design. Just before our last dive Stephanie ran me through her gear and showed me all of the tricks, from the suspension cumber bun to the modular design.   I got to see the fins in action for myself, we were passed by a small white tip reef shark and I gave about three kicks to move in for a photo and gave up on it, then was sharply passed by Stephanie at full throttle with her Go-Pro. She is swearing by her black X-Streams now. Scuba Diver Girls are loving Mares, Suunto and diving Yap. We still haven’t even exercised all their gear, we have some Watershot night diving to do this week and a few Manderinfish to film. Tomorrow we head out on another three tank day and by Wednesday we’re going to start in on some island fun. Bill and his family are scheduled to take the ladies on a Caverns tour on Wednesday, followed by some super charged shark action on Thursday with a plane wreck dive in the mix somewhere. Stay tuned for more action with the Scuba Diver Girls’ facebook page as well as Manta Ray Bay on facebook.