On Thursday night, Patricia, Greg Wilson and I were treated to a very memorable, and rare, occasion.  We were invited to dinner at the private home of Trader Jack Cooper, perhaps the most famous publican in the South Pacific.

We first met Jack at his restaurant and bar over coffee one morning and then visited his house one afternoon.  During that afternoon visit, Jack took a liking to Patricia and decided that we were worthy private dinner companions so we were invited to his house where his wife Rosa cooked an amazing meal of steak, fresh salad, carmalized onions and potatoes.

Jack has been in Rarotonga for over 30 years and has established an impressive business empire including the famous Trader Jack’s Bar & Grill, a catering company and fish processing plant including a 10 ton per day ice machine.   Jack Cooper is truly a captain of industry having started numerous other businesses over the years and now settling down to write his memoirs – “40 Years Behind Bars” detailing his history in the tourism business.

Obviously Patrica and I extended an invitation for Jack and Rosa to visit Yap and allow us to return the hospitality.

Bill Acker & his wife Patricia met up with several Canadian friends of Greg Wilson for dinner and drinks to celebrate St. Patrick’s day. Music was provided by Wally Duff and Ian Wheeldon on the guitar with Greg Wilson singing along. It was a greaqt time all around and oh by the way, it was also Patricia’s birthday.

The venue was spectacular in the late afternoon as the sun was setting and the waves were crashing on the beach as seen through the lush tropical garden setting of the Waterline Restaurant. Even after dark, with the group gathered around the guitar, the atmosphere was stricktly party mode all the way.

Wally, originally from Belfast, is the only true green Irishman in the country and we had him for the evening. The evening’s music ranged from Irish ballads to Elvis Pressley with at least two renditions of Happy Birthday for Patricia.

Patricia and I have arrived in the Cook Islands where we are staying with local legendary dive pioneer Greg Wilson, owner and manager of Cook Island Divers.  Greg has been a close personal friend for a number of years and has been to Yap over a dozen times.  Believe it or not, this is the first time for Patricia and I to visit the Cooks.   Greg regularly reminds me that he has been working 20 years to get us to visit.

We have done the various tourist type things, round island drives, up to scenic points, visiting local watering holes and participating in Island Night at one of the local hotels for a traditional feast and dancing.   All of it has been good but the highlight for us has been the diving.

We have been out on the dive boats with Greg for the past 4 days and have seen some very good fish life, clear water and some stunning underwater vistas.  I have to say that I have been very pleasantly surprised by the dive quality but I suspect a lot of this has to do with Greg and the fact that he has been diving these waters since 1973.   We regularly see other dive operators’ boats in locations that we don’t dive and go past them to what Greg says are much better dive sites.  Seems that saving fuel is part of other operations plans while Greg and his staff go out of their way to put you on the day’s best diving.  Greg obviously shares my views on giving customers more than they expect.

At Yap Divers, we stive to under promise and over deliver and Cook Island Divers seems to share this viewpoint.  I urge anyone reading this to consider a stop in the Cooks for any planned New Zealand or Tahiti trip.  Managed by a transplanted Englishman, Ian Wheeldon, Greg’s dive shop specializes in SCUBA Training from Discover Scuba through to Instructor with PADI, NAUI, SSI or CMAS.  You will be in good hands as a new or experienced diver.

Next up, St. Patrick’s Day and Patricia’s Birthday and then more diving.

Manta Ray Bay has often been the base for film crews.  We have just finished hosting an Australian TV crew called Kaufmann Productions .  They were here as part of a larger filming project which is concentrating on the four main manta hotspots around the globe, namely, Mexico, Maldives, Australia and of course Yap.  Yap has  recently been designated a manta sanctuary, which will thankfully help to protect the resident population of mantas from being hunted like they are in many areas of the world.   Speaking with Gisela Kaufmann, the team leader, she told me one of the reasons they came to Yap was purely down to the years of hard work Bill Acker has done working with these amazing creatures and helping to put them on the dive map.

Bill spent most of his days working with the crew, taking them to various dive sites such as Miil Channel, narrating to the camera and giving his observations over the years.  The crew managed to get some great manta footage; including the amazing mating ritual, where it is possible to see more than a dozen mantas circling in the water as part of their courtship ritual.  The crew also managed to get down Yap Day which was held this year in the municipality of Tamil to get some fantastic footage of Yapese culture in full swing.  Yap Day is a celebration of Yapese culture and draws visitors from around the world and is held every year on the 1 – 2 March.

Part of the filming team included Dr Kathy Townsend, the lead scientist with Project Manta in Australia.  Speaking with her she told me of her excitement of what they had filmed and potentially discovered in Yapese waters in respects to manta behavior.  She believes that Yap may be a manta nursery.  If this proves to be true, it will be one of the very few identified on the planet and will thus help us learn way more about these elusive gentle creatures.

When complete the documentary will be shown on leading European and Australian public television channels sometime in mid 2011.