Diving Yap

 The Manta Ray Bay Hotel picked us up and we checked in by 2 AM.  My trusty world diving buddy and travel companion, Pat, and I were given the “Seahorse Room.”  There was a seahorse carved into the door, seahorses on the bedspreads, seahorse photos on the wall, a seahorse shower curtain and last but not least a seahorse carved into the Betel nut on the key chain.  The only thing missing was a seahorse in a salt water aquarium.  Every room in the hotel had a different sea creature theme; very creative!! 

The diving in Yap is known mostly for the Manta Ray cleaning stations and the Mandarin Fish dive.  Since Yap is located pretty much in the middle of nowhere Pacific Ocean it is the perfect place to see larger pelagic ocean species who are attracted to the 24 hour buffet of the coral reef.  Manta Rays come here for a quick spa treatment courtesy of various cleaner wrasses before they hit the singles bar to find love.  This provides divers with an almost guaranteed sighting of these huge, majestic, elegant creatures who seem to effortlessly fly though the water.  

The boat ties off to a buoy a few hundred yards from a very shallow coral reef.  Divers roll in and go straight down to 40 feet or so, our goal is not to scare away the rays who are already cruising the shallow cleaning station.  We circle around this shallow area making sure to stay below the lip of the plateau and we spread out just barely peaking over the top of the coral reef.  We just “sit” there in one place as still as possible and wait for the show to begin.  Pretty soon there is one big manta ray coming straight for me, he veers off and goes around for another pass.  Then there are two, three and even more at times.  Sometimes they sneak up behind you, the diver next to you starts to point and just as you start to turn your head to see what they are pointing at, this huge white underbelly buzzes your head and starts the circular dance of the cleaning station. 

At times there are no rays, so we just wait.  Since we have been sitting there relatively still the smaller fish start to get use to your presence and they will come pretty close.  This is the perfect time to get photos of small fish that are normally too skittish to let you take their photo.  I think the cleaning station is the best of both worlds; huge manta rays and small guys, all in one stop.

The Mandarin Fish is something completely unique to a small part of the west and south Pacific.  It is a small fish, about 1 to 2 inches long that is strikingly colorful.  I had only seen them in the fish id books and looked forward to this special dive.  Mandarin Fish live in and among shallow coral reefs in protected lagoons.  They feed and mate in a very small territory and the best time to see them is at dusk when they become more active and come out to mate.  The divers are stationed along an area of finger coral and we wait…and wait….and wait.  Eventually you see a bit of color move way down low in the coral, stay still and they come higher and higher, eating their way up the coral finger.  

Photo by Mindy Coplin

Pretty soon a much larger Mandarin Fish struts by and beckons the little lady out to mate.  They meet belly to belly and in a flash they dart up a foot or so release sperm and egg and in an instant they are apart and she goes back to foraging along the coral and he struts off to find the next female.  In Yap this is a special dive that you pay extra for so we were amused to find the same fish living among the trash and anemic coral along cement wall in the boat basin of Sam’s Tours in Palau.

Since Yap is located hundreds of miles from anywhere they also have wonderful walls just outside the barrier reef that drop into the abyss and are covered with every kind of life you can think of.  On one side is a vertical wall covered with sea life while on the other side and below is nothing but deep blue sea!!  Keep an eye out on the deep blue every now and then because you just never know who will silently swim by while you are too busy looking at a ¼ inch nudibranch.