Day 9 – We are in Yap

Day 9 – We are in Yap
We landed in Yap, one of four islands in the Federated States of Micronesia, at 3:00am and by the time we got to the Manta Ray Bay Hotel it was about 4:00am. It was time to get some sleep. We woke up at 8am and decided to just get up and put things away. We prepped our dive and camera gear then headed to the Mnuw for something to eat. We are had our breakfast on the Mnuw, a 100 year old Balinese schooner which was sailed into this harbor to start a new life as a restaurant and bar. Both Liz and I could not wait for lunch to eat and apparently we were not the only ones up and checking things out. We had a bit of a breakfast at 10:30 with Jim and Amber, then looked around. The place has changed since the last time I was here in 2006. They did a great job of remodeling the place after a typhoon.

Finally it was 2pm and time to go diving. Our first dive in Yap was to Slow and Easy. The water was only 82 degrees below the thermocline and 84 above it. This dive is just like it says, slow and easy. We had an 82 minute dive that allowed us to see several different nudibranchs, a couple of flat worms, yellow gobies, and a turtle that posed for me. There was a ghost pipefish, a first for me, and the largest mantis shrimp I have ever seen, this thing was gigantic. We got back to our rooms at 4:30 and had a meeting to go over history at 5pm, then straight to dinner. I was hungry! We ate dinner at the hotel again being that there seems to be only one other place to eat other than the hotel. We may try the other place tomorrow.

At 7pm they had movie time on the bow of the Mnuw. Tonight they were showing Jeff Dunham’s “Spark of Insanity”. After dinner we returned to our room, watched the movie from our balcony and I checked out my pictures for the day.

It’s now time to wind down and get ready for bed. Tomorrow will be a full day of diving and classroom. Not sure when yet, but we will be doing an island tour some day.