Page 319 - Micronesia

Yap Scuba Diving: Manta Rays and Walls

Yap is increasingly on the radar of tourists as cleaner wrasse of coral stations. Others are drawn
a world-class dive spot, where underwater to the easy feeding in the channel’s plankton-

visibility often exceeds an impressive 45m (148 rich waters. They’re acrobatic, often vaulting

ft.). The marine scenery is superb, where table effortlessly in circular flight during the courtship

corals are reportedly the size of dinner tables, rituals from December to April. It is this consist-

and divers may encounter huge mounds of blue ent performance that has made the island of

staghorn, golden elkhorn, and giant brain cor- Yap synonymous with manta interactions. So

als. Yap has the largest concentration of manta common are the sightings that a majority of the

rays in the world, fed by the rich plankton in the mantas have been named and identified by the

surrounding mangroves. With wingspans of 4.8 peculiar blotches that tattoo their underside.

to 6m (16–20 ft.), manta rays can weigh up to
S1,350kg (2,976 pounds), and unlike stingrays—
outh of Mi’il Channel, beginning along
which have spines or stingers on their tails—they the western shoreline, are a cluster of

pose no threat to divers. Clad in black and white, wall sites flanking the island’s southern tip.

the mantas ease through the haze of the chan- The diving here at sites like Cabbage Patch,

nel’s waters like regal ambassadors, fleshy kites Magic Kingdom, Gilman Wall, Yap Caverns

gliding deliberately on tidal cue. It is estimated and Lionfish Wall would alone put Yap on

that more than a hundred of these graceful crea- any diver’s list of Micronesia stops. They

tures congregate in Yap’s waters with a majority have always, however, been overshadowed

making daily pilgrimages to have their gills and by the mantas’ notoriety.

wings tended and picked free of parasites by the