cozcharlie
Contributor
I visited Yap for a two week stay in late January 2023. While I had been there before, that was more than 20 years ago. Yap was basically closed off from the world for 2 1/2 years due to Covid travel restrictions before beginning to re-open in mid-late 2022. Given how long the island was closed due to Covid travel restrictions I was more than a little nervous about how things might have been maintained after such a long time with no tourists. I was actually THRILLED with every aspect of my vacation. The island had obviously modernized a little over two decades (thank you wifi), but the character hadn't really changed much. Thankfully Yap is still basically the same quiet island I visited 22 years ago.
BACKGROUND
Yap is a state in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The state actually includes several outer islands stretched out over hundreds of miles, the core Yap Islands are about 500 miles SW from Guam (about 2/3rds of the way from Guam to Palau). I am a little confused by the various population counts, but roughly 8,000 people live on the core Yap islands with another few thousand on the outer islands (I think I have seen 11,000, 12,000 and 15,000 as the population of Yap State). The divemaster told me there were ~8,000 in the main islands. The FSM used to be a trust territory and has strong US ties via a compact of free association. The currency is the US dollar, with two ATMs on the island (which were repaired while I was there after being down for years during Covid). Yap is generally viewed as having maintained more of its original culture than many other islands. It is also famous for stone money. They used to send canoes to Palau to quarry rock that wasn't found in Yap and then taken to Yap across hundreds of miles in the open ocean. The stone money is still there displayed in gardens that some people may call banks, but I don't think it is actively used as a currency much. There are pictures at the end of the photo album I will link to at the end of the trip report.
HOTEL/DIVE OPERATOR
I was very impressed how well Manta Ray Bay Resort and its Yap Divers affiliate weathered the Covid shutdown storm. The hotel and dive operation were in great shape. I am not sure how , but they managed to maintain everything in good condition despite a long period without tourists. It was pretty clear that this was a well designed and well run dive resort prior to Covid and they were able to use that mentality to carry them through. My room (think it was a deluxe waterfront category) was spacious , well furnished and very clean. All the dive boats were well designed and ran perfectly. The two divemasters I used (Nico and Ferr, apologies for spelling ) were extremely experienced and helpful in achieving whatever my photographic goals were on each dive.
FOOD
The MRBR has a floating restaurant. It is a 170 ft wooden schooner from Indonesia. Depending upon the number of guests they will evidently due a buffet in the restaurant or a just serve individual breakfasts in the lobby if only a few guests are in house. I am not a big breakfast person, so primarily just had fruit but they seemed willing to do all the normal breakfast things. Lunch was usually on the boat. We did 3 tank dives, so they had several hearty sandwiches they could make. They took your lunch order either the night before or at the start of breakfast. I had dinner at the top-deck bar of the Mnuw most nights. They had a few nightly specials, not a particularly wide range but it was fine. One thing is that they evidently can make pizza and sandwiches (including hamburgers) every day, but they don't necessarily list them on the menu chalkboard. If you don't see what you want on the chalkboard I would ask what else they have on offer.
I also at the Oceania Restaurant a 5 minute walk from the hotel a few times. The bar/restaurant is evidently owned by an expat (or expat couple). They had a pretty broad menu that was pretty good. I had the ribeye a couple of times, cut quality wasn't that great (ribeyes are pretty variable in the states, then you layer in a tropical island so you do have to temper your expectations), but the restaurant prepared and seasoned it quite well. I enjoyed my meal both times. It was nice to add some variety into a two week trip. The Oceania has a good reputation among the ex-pat community--a woman beside me on the shuttle from the airport to the hotel was raving about it. I saw many ex-pats and tourists enjoying there meals at Oceania (also saw pretty much the same people at Mnuw when Oceania was closed on Saturdays and Sundays)
THE DIVING
Yap's main strength was the manta rays they are famous for. There is a cleaning station called Stammtisch in 15-20 feet of water at a site well inside from the reef where they come in to be cleaned by the smaller fish. We saw Mantas probably about 70% of the time we went looking for them. I think we saw at most 4 on one dive, but the individuals did tend to linger for a bit making multiple passes. I think I spent 15 or 20 minutes with one individual ray the first day (and saw 3 others that day). There had been a lot of rain so the visibility wasn't that great in the channel (25-40 feet in the channel probably). All of the channel diving is tide dependent. I believe the manta rays use the cleaning station on the NW side of the island where we were during the winter, but use a cleaning station on the opposite side during the summer. In theory I think the winter is supposed to be the better time to see rays, but you can confirm this elsewhere on the internet.
We also dove many dives on the outside reefs that ring the islands looking for things other than mantas. Visibility was also slightly variable due to surge, some days it was probably only 60 feet but on the best day I think it was ~120 feet (clearer than my Cozumel home on a really good day). They have a site called Vertigo where they sometimes feed the sharks, we saw a decent mix of various reef sharks there. The highlight was probably the Magic Kingdom site where a few times we saw a school of 12-14 baby eagle rays hanging out near what is evidently a cleaning station for them. We did look for macro some days. The macro sites tended not to be that diverse from a macro standpoint (we would see a multiple individuals of one nudibranch/slug species, but not multiple species). The best macro dive is the mandarin fish twilight dive 5 minutes by boat from the resort. It is pretty easy to see mandarin fish there, getting a good macro photo is a bit trickier since they tend to hang out at the base of a maze of coral and only climb out every so often. Evidently to get the true "money" mating shot you have to wait to the side and pray the pop up to the top of the coral to mate, Awesome shot if you can get it, but I had no luck on that one. You can shoot down on to some of the individuals as the climb the coral, but if you are hovering over them it reduces the chance of your getting a true "money shot" with a couple mating.
Aside from mandarin fish and night dives, most diving seems to be on 3 tank boat dives. There is a channel ("German Channel") that cuts through the island that isn't passable at low tide so that is part of the reason they tend to plan on 3 tanks since it isn't always possible to get back to the resort. As I mentioned, they have sandwiches on the boat for lunch. They also offer hot tea, water, and hot towels after every dive.
GETTING THERE
United airlines is only flying to Yap every other week from Guam at the moment (theoretically returning to more regular service in April 2023), but I did want to note that several guests used Pacific Mission Aviation (PMA) to get between Palau and Yap (making a week long stay possible now ). I think PMA uses a 9 or 10 seat puddle jumper. Evidently they don’t have a formal schedule but are making fairly frequent flights (you have to email them evidently ). They seem to be pretty well known in Micronesia. A non-diving guest thar had worked in the islands for years swore by them.
SUMMARY:
Great hotel, great staff, great manta opportunities and good overall diving on a quaint island with very friendly people--What's not to like? I look forward to returning to Yap and Manta Bay Ray/Yap Divers. I think 2 weeks may be a little much for most vacation limited people, but a one week add-on after Palau (especially if you don't mind the PMA puddle jumper) could make a great deal of sense. If using only United, it will probably mean spending a day on Guam in between. I will hopefully be back to Yap in only a matter of months if things go as planned and I do a combined Palau/Yap trip.
PHOTO ALBUM LINK
[Yap - CozCharlie]
BACKGROUND
Yap is a state in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The state actually includes several outer islands stretched out over hundreds of miles, the core Yap Islands are about 500 miles SW from Guam (about 2/3rds of the way from Guam to Palau). I am a little confused by the various population counts, but roughly 8,000 people live on the core Yap islands with another few thousand on the outer islands (I think I have seen 11,000, 12,000 and 15,000 as the population of Yap State). The divemaster told me there were ~8,000 in the main islands. The FSM used to be a trust territory and has strong US ties via a compact of free association. The currency is the US dollar, with two ATMs on the island (which were repaired while I was there after being down for years during Covid). Yap is generally viewed as having maintained more of its original culture than many other islands. It is also famous for stone money. They used to send canoes to Palau to quarry rock that wasn't found in Yap and then taken to Yap across hundreds of miles in the open ocean. The stone money is still there displayed in gardens that some people may call banks, but I don't think it is actively used as a currency much. There are pictures at the end of the photo album I will link to at the end of the trip report.
HOTEL/DIVE OPERATOR
I was very impressed how well Manta Ray Bay Resort and its Yap Divers affiliate weathered the Covid shutdown storm. The hotel and dive operation were in great shape. I am not sure how , but they managed to maintain everything in good condition despite a long period without tourists. It was pretty clear that this was a well designed and well run dive resort prior to Covid and they were able to use that mentality to carry them through. My room (think it was a deluxe waterfront category) was spacious , well furnished and very clean. All the dive boats were well designed and ran perfectly. The two divemasters I used (Nico and Ferr, apologies for spelling ) were extremely experienced and helpful in achieving whatever my photographic goals were on each dive.
FOOD
The MRBR has a floating restaurant. It is a 170 ft wooden schooner from Indonesia. Depending upon the number of guests they will evidently due a buffet in the restaurant or a just serve individual breakfasts in the lobby if only a few guests are in house. I am not a big breakfast person, so primarily just had fruit but they seemed willing to do all the normal breakfast things. Lunch was usually on the boat. We did 3 tank dives, so they had several hearty sandwiches they could make. They took your lunch order either the night before or at the start of breakfast. I had dinner at the top-deck bar of the Mnuw most nights. They had a few nightly specials, not a particularly wide range but it was fine. One thing is that they evidently can make pizza and sandwiches (including hamburgers) every day, but they don't necessarily list them on the menu chalkboard. If you don't see what you want on the chalkboard I would ask what else they have on offer.
I also at the Oceania Restaurant a 5 minute walk from the hotel a few times. The bar/restaurant is evidently owned by an expat (or expat couple). They had a pretty broad menu that was pretty good. I had the ribeye a couple of times, cut quality wasn't that great (ribeyes are pretty variable in the states, then you layer in a tropical island so you do have to temper your expectations), but the restaurant prepared and seasoned it quite well. I enjoyed my meal both times. It was nice to add some variety into a two week trip. The Oceania has a good reputation among the ex-pat community--a woman beside me on the shuttle from the airport to the hotel was raving about it. I saw many ex-pats and tourists enjoying there meals at Oceania (also saw pretty much the same people at Mnuw when Oceania was closed on Saturdays and Sundays)
THE DIVING
Yap's main strength was the manta rays they are famous for. There is a cleaning station called Stammtisch in 15-20 feet of water at a site well inside from the reef where they come in to be cleaned by the smaller fish. We saw Mantas probably about 70% of the time we went looking for them. I think we saw at most 4 on one dive, but the individuals did tend to linger for a bit making multiple passes. I think I spent 15 or 20 minutes with one individual ray the first day (and saw 3 others that day). There had been a lot of rain so the visibility wasn't that great in the channel (25-40 feet in the channel probably). All of the channel diving is tide dependent. I believe the manta rays use the cleaning station on the NW side of the island where we were during the winter, but use a cleaning station on the opposite side during the summer. In theory I think the winter is supposed to be the better time to see rays, but you can confirm this elsewhere on the internet.
We also dove many dives on the outside reefs that ring the islands looking for things other than mantas. Visibility was also slightly variable due to surge, some days it was probably only 60 feet but on the best day I think it was ~120 feet (clearer than my Cozumel home on a really good day). They have a site called Vertigo where they sometimes feed the sharks, we saw a decent mix of various reef sharks there. The highlight was probably the Magic Kingdom site where a few times we saw a school of 12-14 baby eagle rays hanging out near what is evidently a cleaning station for them. We did look for macro some days. The macro sites tended not to be that diverse from a macro standpoint (we would see a multiple individuals of one nudibranch/slug species, but not multiple species). The best macro dive is the mandarin fish twilight dive 5 minutes by boat from the resort. It is pretty easy to see mandarin fish there, getting a good macro photo is a bit trickier since they tend to hang out at the base of a maze of coral and only climb out every so often. Evidently to get the true "money" mating shot you have to wait to the side and pray the pop up to the top of the coral to mate, Awesome shot if you can get it, but I had no luck on that one. You can shoot down on to some of the individuals as the climb the coral, but if you are hovering over them it reduces the chance of your getting a true "money shot" with a couple mating.
Aside from mandarin fish and night dives, most diving seems to be on 3 tank boat dives. There is a channel ("German Channel") that cuts through the island that isn't passable at low tide so that is part of the reason they tend to plan on 3 tanks since it isn't always possible to get back to the resort. As I mentioned, they have sandwiches on the boat for lunch. They also offer hot tea, water, and hot towels after every dive.
GETTING THERE
United airlines is only flying to Yap every other week from Guam at the moment (theoretically returning to more regular service in April 2023), but I did want to note that several guests used Pacific Mission Aviation (PMA) to get between Palau and Yap (making a week long stay possible now ). I think PMA uses a 9 or 10 seat puddle jumper. Evidently they don’t have a formal schedule but are making fairly frequent flights (you have to email them evidently ). They seem to be pretty well known in Micronesia. A non-diving guest thar had worked in the islands for years swore by them.
SUMMARY:
Great hotel, great staff, great manta opportunities and good overall diving on a quaint island with very friendly people--What's not to like? I look forward to returning to Yap and Manta Bay Ray/Yap Divers. I think 2 weeks may be a little much for most vacation limited people, but a one week add-on after Palau (especially if you don't mind the PMA puddle jumper) could make a great deal of sense. If using only United, it will probably mean spending a day on Guam in between. I will hopefully be back to Yap in only a matter of months if things go as planned and I do a combined Palau/Yap trip.
PHOTO ALBUM LINK
[Yap - CozCharlie]