Yap Yap Hooray :-)

[Frank Schneider]

I just came back from the Mantafest-week at Manta Ray Bay Resort & Yap Divers in Yap, Micronesia :: Home at Yap.
We had stunning encounters at the new cleaning station - i made 5 or 6 of my longest dives (of those more or less 2800) ever at that spot - the longest one last 135 minutes.
Why? - well we couldn't leave the mantas!
So couldn't the photographers taking part at the Mantafest-photo-competition, which for I had the honor - together with Marty Snyderman, Tim Rock and Ray Bullion - to be one of the jury-members.
Other dives were together with grey reefsharks and white-tip-reefsharks - as the came as close to the diver's cameras as the mantas did.

So in the end the winners of the categories "mantas and/or sharks, reef scenic, macro and people/land/culture" got stunning prices.
The "Best of show" winner received the new Mares computer Icon HD net ready, the 1. places won a week at the manta ray bay resort including dives, the 2nd places won Mares X-Stream-fins + mask + snoorkel plus a Henderson shorty, the 3rd places more stuff from Henderson.

Even if I cannot partecipate in the contest as a juror - just look at the photos: do I need more reasons to do the same dives again next year?
C u,
Frank

 

[tangfish]

I just got back from Yap as well. Manta Ray Bay Hotel and Yap Divers Rock!!! I haven't been to many other places that run so smoothly. Vis got a bit poor with the weather there toward the end of my stay, but the mantas were great and Yap Caverns are so beautiful. Glad to hear that you had a nice trip and yes, Yap is definitely worth those crappy flights to get to.

 

[viva1]

We're looking into diving in Palau next January, 2013 (10 days there) and someone said that we should go to Yap as well. Since only 2 flights seem to leave from Koror to Yap/week, we either stay in Yap only 2 days or stay about a week. 2 days doesn't sound like enough. Are 6 days there too much? Are there other things to do besides dive there? How is the snorkeling?

Which hotel/dive shop would you go with? Are there dives that don't have a lot of current? Some current dives are OK, but I like non-current dives as well.

Thanks.