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!