Where on earth is Yap?

We saw the above question on several t-shirts this week, and generally it’s pretty close to the response you get when you someone asks you where you’re going on holiday and you say ‘Yap’.

The first thing to say is it’s not in Tibet, in fact with almost no elevation, verdant vegetation and every chance of being soaked by tropical rain two or three times a day (if you’re not soaked with sweat already from the heat). Yap is one of the Federated States of Micronesia, an island nation in the tropical Pacific southeast of the Philippines. Each state has its own charms, Kosrae state has the archaeological ruins of Lelu and is famous for its fruit, Pohnpei state has a ‘prehistoric Venice’ in the impressive and mysterious Nan Madol site, Chuuk is world famous for the sunken Japanese fleet in its lagoon and Yap is known for its traditional culture and marine riches.

After an absence of 7 years it was a pleasure to return to many friends and familiar faces, and a surprise to find a Yap barely changed from when I left, apart from the fact some things like banking services seemed to have gone backwards! (As before I still can’t tie my loincloth – local dress – so it stays more than a few hours without falling off…!)

Yap has many claims to uniqueness, one of the more well known being that it is the ‘Land of Stone Money’. Yap’s place in the record bookd is for the world’s heaviest money, some individual pieces weighing more than a ton and being several meters across. The money pieces are carved from crystalline calcite rock which is not found in Yap but the neighboring Republic of Palau. In old times Yapese would sail from Yap to Palau (c. 300 miles) on wooden sailing canoes, carve out the huge stone discs (rai) and then transport them on the hazardous sea voyage back to Yap. Many lives and rai were lost on this difficult trip, and each piece in Yap today has its own story. Most villages have their own ‘stone money bank’ and the value of the pieces in the bank relates not to how big it is but to the story of the voyage to get it and bring it back.

Fascinating as this and the rest of the anthropology of Yap is, it is for the underwater riches that most tourists come to Yap today. Yap is one of the few places in the world where you can virtually guarantee seeing manta rays and mandarinfish in one day – two very sought after underwater encounters about as far separated in terms of size as can be. We took a few days to explore Yap both above and below the water and had some memorable encounters...

Northern Yap beach - note the wide tidal flats which are common here.

Mangrove covers large areas of coastline with a maze of channels stretching inland to villages.

The men's house in Wulu village

Inside the men's house at Kadai village

Kadai village's stone money bank - stone money usually seems to be displayed conspicuously.

The community meeting house in Kadai, seen through the center of stone money.

In the summer months the sea can approach flat calm, perfect conditions for the dolphin pod in southern Yap.

A spinner dolphin in south Yap, notice the dolphin is exhaling through its blowhole, the bubbles appear to stick to the body due to the high speed of the dolphin underwater.

This photo was taken through the surface of the water and in open sea - it really was 'flat calm'!

Bow riding spinner dolphins show off their acrobatics by weaving over and under each other.

Travelling at high speed in front of the boat the dolphins trail vortices off their fins.

Below the surface curtains of light fall from the surface into 'Yap Caverns'.

Yap is most famous for manta rays...

Manta rays collect in some of the reef channels of Yap to visit 'cleaning stations' where many small cleaner wrasse live.

Huge manta rays 'fly' low over your head as sit or lie on the sea floor.

The manta rays are up to 14 feet wingspan and more than 40 are known individually by wing markings.

This is Valerina, a 14 foot female who seemed keen on hovering above you to see how long you can avoid exhaling too much...

This was actually taken with a wide-angle lens, mantas sometimes fly very close indeed!

The mantas often have 'pilot fish' that swim close to the manta, in this case golden trevally.

In this picture a snapper is aspiring to be a pilot fish as well! On several occasions when mantas made close passes to us the pilot fish briefly switched from manta to diver.

Drifting...

The walls in south Yap are covered with soft coral and life to the extent they look like huge piles of cushions in some places!

It was great to see there were some regions that were not heavily impacted by Typhoon Sudal in 2004.

We saw many more 'clouds' of anthias in Yap than Palau, sometimes these clouds contained many hundreds of fish.

There were still the usual favourites as well..

... and quite a few instances of juvenile dascyllus sharing anemones too..

The "Rainbow Reef" divesite is also reliably able to deliver mandarinfish (Synchirops splendidus), one of the most sought after and difficult to see small reef fish.

We were getting used to seeing the usual black and white nudibranchs but this pink one was new for us ... was it something it ate??

It's always good to watch where you're putting your hands and feet.. I didn't see this crocodilefish until I was about a foot away looking for mandarinfish in the coral rubble.

As night settles in feather worms emerge from their burrows in the coral and the nocturnal reef life takes over.