We swam a short distance from the boat through murky plankton-filled water until we reached a knob of coral resting less than ten meters below the surface. There, we knelt on the bottom and waited. We had been told this was a cleaning station, where manta rays come to feed and allow tiny wrasse fish to nibble away little parasites and algae that collect on their skin.
A few minutes later, a shadow emerged. A creepy blur in the distance glided forward, gently flapping its wings. The shape looked something like a stingray or perhaps a flattened bird. As it came closer, its girth became more impressive, and by the time he reached the knob, his size was jaw dropping. As in fourteen-foot wing span jaw dropping. That’s more than two Jeffs laid end to end, wing tip to wing tip.
Slowly the creature unfurled flaps on either side of his mouth to funnel plankton inside. The creature didn’t care about our presence in the least, even though we were crouched at the edge of the station only a few feet away. Another shape appeared in the gloom, and then a third from somewhere behind us, until there were five mantas gliding around us, each in turn blotting out the sun, and dipping directly over our heads, close enough that we could have reached up and touched them.
Yap, Micronesia is one of the few places in the world where divers are practically guaranteed to see mantas in the wild. The island is obscure and hard to reach. Only four flights a week land on the tiny island – all of them in the dead of the night. Visitors are greeted by a topless native handing out leis. Customs takes place on the tarmac from a phone booth-like room. Luggage is transported from the plane in the back of a pickup truck.
Men and women, old and young chew betel nut incessantly. They talk like they have a mouth full of tobacco and their teeth and lips are permanently stained red to the point where it feels like the island is populated by friendly vampires. Many of Yap’s outer islands are still forbidden to foreigners, their inhabitants hide whenever they hear motorized boats nearby. “You may not see them,” mentioned a local guide, “but you can be sure there are many eyes on you.”
Most of the shops and homes have stone disks outside. Yap is known for its stone money – currency that was cut and imported from Palau over hundreds of years. It still has worth today, kind of like a family trust fund. Pieces are bought and sold although they are never moved from their original location. Everyone on the island simply knows who owns which rocks. They come in a myriad of sizes, yet size doesn’t matter. Pieces with colorful “family stories” are worth more. In other words, the human life toll transporting the stone to Yap via a dangerous canoe voyage determined the worth.
The South Pacific is easily starting to feel like a home away from home. We’re going to miss the perfect, warm days of diving, enjoying a mangrove crab followed by fresh drinking coconuts. Mostly we’ll miss the easy-going island way. As we shake the wrinkles out of our long buried (and smelly) winter clothes, we look forward to Tokyo as the last stepping stone before reaching home just in time for the holidays.
For more Yap photos click here.
