TWARS (This Week at Reef Seekers) - July 16-23

[Ken Kurtis]

LIVE FROM MANTA RAY BAY IN YAP (please scroll down for details)​

We made it safe and sound. And since it's Sunday evening in Yap, here's this week's TWARS . . . LONG TRIP TO GET HERE - Despite a 90-minute delay in leaving LAX last Monday - this is why we always take the earlier flight to Honolulu - we made it into Yap right on time, which sadly is 1:10AM. Got the Manta Ray Bay resort around 3AM and crashed. And it's been dive/dive/dive since then. Here's what we've been talking about on FaceBook along with some pix Which, despite my complaining about the GoPro pix, the ones below are all from my Nikon DLSR): DIVING IN YAP - DAY 1 Busy day today as this is our first full day but only one checkout dive. But we all needed time to sleep in a bit, get gear squared away, and stuff like that. Made a nice if unspectacular dive on O'Keefe Passage. But, as the name implies, a checkout dive performs exactly that function as everyone can "check out" their gear and weights and the resort staff can "check out" the divers competency overall. We followed that with a Manta ID class, then dinner, and now ready to crash. No pix today - no one took cameras (at my suggestion) but hopefully tomorrow. DAY 2 Highs and lows. Weather was great. No wind. Personally, camera issues as my strobes stopped firing halfway through the first dive. Some others had some equipment issues. But you deal and life (and diving) goes on. Highlight of the day was the three-manta fly-by we got three times while diving in Goofnu Channel. Here's a 30-second video clip: https://youtu.be/g6Bft21d5ow DAY 3 Great weather along with nice dives today It rained, but only for a few minutes and only after we'd completed our dives and were almost back at the dock. (Maybe Yap is really Camelot????) Started at Gilmann Wall and then did Yap Caverns. Both of them really interesting (south end of island) and full of stuff. The diving is very different depending on whether you are north or south &/or on the east side or the west side. Lots of Bumphead parrots today and dozens and dozens of Titan Triggers. I'm still having cam issues so only shot with the GoPro today, which is not great at stills.​

DAY 4 The weather caught up to us today. (But we were going to get wet anyhow.) Rained off and on. We dove Stammtisch (manta cleaning station) but there were no mantas. Then we dove Vertigo where there were only a few sharks, but also a very cool school of Bumphead Parrotfish. Not every dive can be spectacular. But then we dropped in at Sunset Reef (unmarked on the charts) and it WAS spectacular. Healthy hard corals, enormous reef structure, vertical walls, and bunches of fish, including schooling Rainbow Runners, Mackerel, a Peacock Flounder, and even a lobster. Hope to get the D750 operational tomorrow.​

DAY 5 I'm a much happier photographer today as I hooked up my Sola video lights to my Nikon DSLR camera and can shoot with the "good" camera instead of the GoPro. Hopefully the images here bear that out. That being said . . . The wind picked up a bit today - and will likely be with us for a few days - which make for a very bumpy and wet ride back to Manta Ray Bay. We started at Land's End where the first group saw a squadron of 18 Eagle Rays passing by and the second group had a nice Barracuda encounter. We then moved over to Yellow Wall where a big group of Rainbow Runners flew on by. (Pix of those guys higher up.) Viz was around 100' for each of those dives. Then bouncy and wet to get back to MRB and inside the harbor to dive the Circus Wreck, where interesting things can be found if you take the time to look. (But no 100' viz here.) BTW, the standard dive day at MRB now is three dives/day, which includes lunch of the boat. You choose off of a menu the night before. I've had Chicken Caesar Salad, Fried Rice with chicken, and Chicken Burritos so far (all really good). Everyone can have whatever they want as each lunch is individually prepped and put into separate tupperware containers (with your name on it), and then it's all delivered to your dive boat when they send out the tank boat, which arrives as you're finishing dive 2. Nice touch.​

So that's what's happened so far. Good trip to this point. Bill Acker and his staff - many of whom are new because of post-COVID staff changes - are taking good care of us. Lots more to do and see. Follow us on FaceBook (the Ken Kurtis page) and we'll have more for you next week in TWARS. - Ken​