The Manta Fest days are officially underway with Andy and Ray and myself slated to be giving seminars starting this week.

The first day of diving was highlighted by a great gathering of reef sharks at Vertigo. Bill Acker brought down a small bait basket that kept the sharks interested while people snapped away and shot video.

Ai again tried some free diving with these gray reefs and looked right at home in the blue, clear water with her toothy friends. Our second dive also produced an eagle and some beautiful corals covered in a cloud of glassy baitfish.

Today we also saw five sharks getting cleanings and coasting in the current at Gofnuw Channel’s Car Wash. One shark had two pesky remoras that were driving her crazy.

This afternoon back to Vertigo and hopefully more great shark action.

What would Manta Fest be without mantas? Well, they showed up today to the glee of early visitors. And not without a bit of fanfare.

We returned to Miil under sunny skies and a bit of a breeze. Low tide was just at slack and the channel visibility on the first dive was fit mostly for macro. Guest Judy found wire coral gobies and some colorful commensal shrimp hanging out on bubble corals. Ai and I went to the deep cleaning station and found willing longnose hawkfish in the golden gorgonians there.

But no one saw any mantas.

While having our morning hot tea and banana bread, we discussed where we should go next. That was settled when a manta actually lept out of the water right next to our boat! After seeing this big splash and announcement of “we are here” from the rays, it was back into the water where we had a tango with three mantas, an eagle ray and a few sharks. The mantas were lazily cruising in the incoming tide, getting cleaned a bit and taking a few stabs at being amorous it appeared. JR’s group had all three circle overhead at touching distance (no they didn’t, but they were close enough to touch).

In all, it was a nice dive with clear water and we spent a lot of dive time with man’s & woman’s best friends… mantas.

Tomorrow we expect to see more divers and some full boats as Manta Fest officially kicks off. But for the early arrivals, it’s been fun already.

Story and Photo by TIM ROCK

Manta Fest in Yap is slated to begin this weekend. A few of are here early including my free diver friend Ai Futaki. Here is Ai at 50 feet off Vertigo Wall with a gray reef shark (or six). We had sunny skies and clear, incoming tide waters to dive Miil Channel and then go outside the reef to Vertigo.

Mill produced a school of bumphead parrotfish, jacks and gray reef and whitetip sharks. We the headed to Vertigo. Henry gunned the engines a few times before anchoring and we were greeted by the hungry pack of gray reef sharks hoping for a feeding. They stayed around for the whole dive and Ai put on a show by easily going to 60 feet and shooting video.

Tomorrow we head back to Miil hoping for mantas this time.

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