We arrived in Yap at 3am, clearing immigration we were greeted by a traditionally dressed young man who presented us each with a garland of flowers (we later learnt he makes the garlands himself and meets and greets every arrival to the island). We waited for our luggage in the open, by a large table; we could see our plane and watched as luggage was unloaded onto a pickup truck which then drove to us, the luggage being unloaded directly onto the table.
We had booked to stay at an ecolodge (www.pathwayshotel.com) and were greeted by one of the managers who drove us the lodge. The roads were littered with sleeping dogs, some begrudgingly moved whilst at other times the car had to weave around them ! Upon arrival we headed to our cottage to get some sleep.
08/09/10
Waking up late morning we got a better look at our accomodation and its surroundings. The cottages are built using natural materials. They are built on a hillside overlooking a bay below, situated in a tropical garden setting and interconnected by wooden walkways giving you a feeling of your very own treehouse in the tropical paradise. We had a nice shaded balcony and a gekkos in the rafters, already it felt like the pace of life had turned down a couple of notches.
After a breakfast of coffee and local fruits we embarked on a half day land tour with one of the people from Pathways. It was difficult to look at him to start with as his teeth were so stained from chewing betlenuts, it made the betlenut chewers on Palau look like amateurs. We soon found out that nearly everyone in Yap chews the nut; men, women, boys & girls - our guide claims he started chewing at the age of 5. The other noticable difference was that alot less of them seemed to spit out the juice, choosing to swallow it instead. That said, the roads and paths are stained with spit and there are notices in shop windows telling people not to spit outside the stores !!!
Our tour would concentrate on the South of the island, we travelled to the village of Rull to see one of the most popular stone banks (a pathway where stone money is kept) for which Yap in famous.
Stone Money (Rai stones):
Rai stones are circular disks carved out of limestone (Yapese quarried the limestone rocks from the islands of Palau and took them to Yap with canoes and rafts) with a large hole in the middle. The size of the stones varies widely; the largest are 3 meters (10 ft) in diameter, 0.5 meters (1.5 ft) thick and weigh 4 metric tons (8,800 lb).
The perceived value of a specific stone is based not only on its size and craftsmanship but also on the history of the stone. If many people — or no one at all — died when the specific stone was transported, or a famous sailor brought it in, the value of the rai stone increases.
They have been used in trade by the locals and are described by some observers as a form of currency. Rai stones were used in social transactions such as marriage, inheritance, political deals, sign of an alliance, ransom of the battle dead or just in exchange for food. Many of them are placed in front of meetinghouses or specific pathways. Though the ownership of a particular stone changes, the stone itself is rarely moved.
The verges along the road to the village were beautifully maintained with trees and flowers, there were numerous coconut trees and there was a real feel of pride. Its difficult to describe what its like when you see the stone banks (and the numerous sized and shaped stones) as its such a unique experience. We walked along the shaded pathway marveling at the effort and workmanship that must have gone into the stones.
The tour now took a change of direction, focusing upon artifacts left over from WWII. Firstly we saw the remains of a US hellcat (1 of 2 shot down) before heading towards the old runway and a detour on foot into the jungle. Here we were rewarded with the shell of a Japanese bomber and scattered remains of a couple of zero fighters. The final suprise was the remains of a Continental Airlines Commercial aircraft (we flew all around Micronesia with Continental !). It turned out it crashed in 1980 while attempting to land on the runway, all 73 occupants escaped before it was destroyed by fire (our guide told us the island fire engine arrived at the scene only to find there was no water in the tanker so had to return to the station to fill up. Upon its return the tanker was again empty, however there was a trail of water leading back down the road). Finally we saw a Japanese machine gun emplacement before heading back to Pathways.
That evening we decided to eat at Pathways restaurant, the conversation went something like this ......
Q "do you have a menu we can see please"
A "we have chicken, pork and fish"
I had freshly caught marlin which was very tasty indeed !
09/09/10
The following morning we were picked up by Yap Divers with whom we were doing 5 days of diving; Yap is rated as the number 1 destination in the world for Manta Ray sightings, so expectations were high. We jumped aboard the small diveboat to head out for our first dive at 'Cabbage Patch'. The topography was beautiful, very different to Palau, in the shallows there were lots of overhangs and swim throughs, there was however far less marine life than in Palau.
The second dive was at 'Yap Caverns', which is made up of a series of swimthroughs. It was a very scenic dive lots of big boulders complemented by numerous nooks and crannies. Again despite a general absence of marine life, there is some beautiful macro life; we saw our first leaf fish (both purple and green).
Back at Yap Divers I had a tasty fish sandwich at the 'Mnuw'. The Mnuw is a 170ft (55m) Phinisi schooner from Indonesia, converted to a floating restaurant and bar. Back at Pathways we enjoyed a refreshing homemade lemonade whilst watching them bag up betlenuts for sale and export.
We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon on our balcony, relaxing and reading; this became a ritual each afternoon, whilst this was in contrast to our 'intensive packed ' days in Palau, it seemed the way to go in Yap and was thoroughly enjoyable.
We lay in bed listening to the night noises - insects, chickens and dogs and felt very very relaxed.
10/09/10
Despite a night of heavy rain, our palm thatched roof had kept us nice and dry. Walking to Yap Divers we passed a dog orgy going on in the middle of the road - 2 dogs were joined together with a third trying to get in on the action, this was observed by a pack of about 10 other dogs ! The locals seemed to take this all in their stride, slowly driving around the dogs (as opposed to running them over as they would do in TCI).
Today we were to be diving on the opposite side of the island, however instead of going around the island we travelled straight through it, using a narrow mangrove waterway. Our first dive was at 'Mil'n Channel', which has about 4 cleaning stations along it and is very popular for Manta Ray sightings. The dive was enjoyable enough, a bit like diving along a canyon. We saw no mantas (there is a theme developing here), however saw a couple of sharks and some great macro life - including more leaf fish and a number of different nudibranchs. In additon to Jo, myself and a guy called Stuart, there were a group of 4 photographers on the boat, one of which was both an SSI instructor trainer and professional photographer. We were shocked and disgusted by their lack of respect for the reef, both kneeling and lying on it to get the best photos. I even saw the SSI guy breaking off chunks of hard corals with his stobes as he swam along, none of this was commented on by the guide, Jo did mention it to the Operations Manager on our return.
The second dive was an a sheer wall called 'vertigo'. After circling the site a couple of times we moored up and jumped in to be confonted by about 14 sharks circling under and the boat and just off the wall (it turns out they shark feed in this area, although that didn't happen on this dive). There were numerous sharks around during the whole time we were under water, including our first sighting of black tips. The site itself was a little barren so we just hung around and enjoyed the shark fest.
In the afternoon we walked around Colonia, took some photos and then chilled on our balcony.
11/09/10
Two of the dive boats wouldn't start due to water in the fuel. We sat around for an hour waiting for someone to give us a update, before taking charge and suggesting that we came back at midday, giving them a chance to sort out the problem. Still no boat at midday, by 12:30 (and with it starting to rain) Jo was getting hungry and so decided to call it a day. I hung around and we eventually departed at 1pm. Our first divesite was called 'O'Keeles Passage' and was a couple of minutes outside the cut. There was a distinct absence of fishlife, however the topography was spectacular; isolated hillock outcrops surrounded by sheets of rock/coral which resembled tumbling slate. Our second dive was inside the cut and called 'slow and easy'. It was a shallow dive, visibility was very poor but there was some great macro life - pipefish and various colouful nudibranches.
12/09/10
There were a number of professional photographers at Yap Divers (in addition to the previously mentioned diver who we had complained about once again); Jo needed a front cover picture for the TCI magazine 'Where, When,How', which was doing a freediving feature for its November issue, so had arranged to do a freediving photoshoot with one of them. Jo went off on one boat and I went diving on another. Today we visited 'Channel of the Rays' and then 'Mil'n Channel', all in search of the elusive manta ray, and all to no avail. I did however see a procession of 5 very small juvenille reef sharks. There was heavy rain on the journay back. We went back to Yap Divers in the evening to review the photoshoot over a beer.
13/09/2010
Our final day of diving and we did a further 2 dives at 'Mil'n Channel' (it was becoming a bit repetitive now), and you guessed it - lets get ready to chant "who stole, tell me who stole, Oh please tell me who stole all the manta rays !!!"
It was not just our boat that failed to see any during the 5 days, and we had been prewarned by a German couple we met in Palau who said they saw none in 7 days of diving. During our stay noone at Yap Divers saw a manta ray and the same goes to people we spoke to who had dived with other centres.
What is a real shame is not that we didn't see any of the buggers, but that the dive centres focus obsessively on them (I did 4 dives at Mil'n channel for example) and ignore what else the waters have to offer. The channel dives soon become dull without these pelagic creatures, the topography is not too inspiring and marine life is not over adundant. On the ohther hand, the other dives we did featured some unique and dramatic topography and some great macro opportunities. Personally I think overlooking these is to the detrement of diving in Yap.
14/09/10
Our last day in Yap :(
We awoke to glorious sunshine and after breakfast embarked on our second tour of the island (with the same guide). Today we were heading for the North of the island to see the traditional thatched roof mens houses, meeting houses, stone banks, centuries old stone paths which are still used to connect the various villages, as well as the location for traditional canoe building.
It was a worth while tour, we started in the far north of the island, the first mens house being along a beautiful coastline. After admiring the building (they were amazingly cool inside) we took the opportunity to walk along the secluded beach, in the water were traditionally built canoes merrily bobbing around. We came upon an injured fruitbat which had been rescued, Jo insisted on getting some fruit to feed it and I stupidly put my fingers through the cage. The bat approached and started licking my fingers (maybe for the salt), before bitting me, Oh well, not too many people can say they've been bitten by a fruit bat !
The tour was followed up with visits to 3 further meeting houses, all quite unique in their design, we saw canoes of various sizes - all of which had been made without the benefit of medoern technology. These were the same type of canoes that had been used to transport the limestone rock (for making stone money) from Palau - it was difficult to image them facing the ardue of over 300 miles of open seas. They still teach traditional navigation techniques and apparantly one of the canoes had just returned after a journey to Guam and back (nearly 600 miles each way). We wandered along some beautiful shady stone pathways and took in more stone money, as well as stone carvings of lizards and fish.
Once back at Pathways, we packed, chilled and tried to get a few hours sleep. Up at 1am we headed to the airport (again avoiding the sleeping dogs).
Aboard the aircraft we resigned ourself to the long haul back - Yap - Guam - Honolulu - Houston. The journey was actually not too bad, it was however quite confusing to have left Guam at 6am on a Tuesday morning and 22.5 hours later arriving in Houston at 8am of the same tuesday (damn international date line).
We crashed out at our hotel and slept until the early evening. Hunger was now an issue and we were in Texas, so we had to have steak (and lots of it). We went to a Saltgrass steakhouse, where we feasted on meat (and I enjoyed the a 'Lone Star' beer or three). I have to say, Texas may not produce good Presidents, but you can sure get a mighty fine steak. Full to bursting we headed back to our hotel.
The next day saw the final leg of our journey, Houston - Miami - TCI. Back home we were warmly greeted by our dogs.
It had been an amazing month with some out of this world diving, stunning scenery, wonderfully friendly people, some great food and of course a much needed (and desrved)break from the island.
All we have to do know is decide on our next great travel destination, and we are certainly not ruling out a return to Palau :)
