Day 9: First Day in Yap

Our first day in Yap was rather low key. We took about an hour flight from Palau to Yap this morning, arriving about 3am. We lost an hour due to the time change. Disembarking from the plane consisted of climbing down the old fashioned stairs to the runway, then walking through the FSM (Federated States of Micronesia) Non-Citizen Immigration door where my passport was checked. Then a quick turn to the left and I was at baggage claim where the pickup truck delivered our bags. Just a few short steps to Customs and then on to the minibus to Manta Ray Bay Hotel. We were able to crawl into bed at 4am. Around 8am I gave up trying to sleep. We unpacked our bags, put together our underwater cameras then went over to the ship for breakfast. Yes, I said the ship. The Mnuw is a 100 year old South-Seas schooner moored next to the resort that serves as the restaurant and bar. Music is played from the ship’s sound system all day long and movies are shown on a large screen on the main deck in the evening.


Before breakfast, we went to Yap Divers shop on the first floor to find our lockers and unpack our gear. A one-tank introductory dive was scheduled for us at 2pm, so with time to kill, I caught up on copying my class notes while Rod wrote his daily blog.

At 2pm we were on the boat and crawling to the site called “Slow and Easy” just at the mouth of the channel only moments from the resort. It was a shallow and what photographers would call a macro dive, meaning our subjects would be small. Our subjects this dive consisted of various nudibranchs, flatworms, small gobies in the sand with their buddy the blind shrimp cleaning their home, and a surprise hawkbill turtle. To our absolute thrill, at the end of the dive, just below the bow of our boat, was the large manta shrimp as pale as the sand peaking out of his hole at us. COOL!

After our 80 minute dive, we were back on the boat and it was just a quick hop back to MRB. We had an hour to clean up and meet Mike & Vicki in the conference room for a short class on Micronesian history. We finished class close to 6pm and then met onboard the Mnuw for dinner. Soon after we finished eating they began to play the movie for the evening. Rod and I returned to our room where Rod could watch Jeff Dunham and Ahmed the Dead Terrorist from our balcony, and I could listen while I write my blog to you. Well, that is about it for our first day in Yap. Fill you in later on tomorrow’s events. GOOD NIGHT!