Yap

An hour's flight after leaving “where the rainbow ends” we arrived in “the land of stone money”, otherwise known as Yap – they love catch phrases around here. Despite the rather completed customs form we passed through immigration and baggage claim quickly thanks to the tiny size of the airport and there only being five of us disembarking in Yap, the rest continuing on to Guam. Although I'd read about it in the guidebook, the first sight of the Yapese customs officials teeth and gums stained red with Betel nut juice, looking distinctly like a mouth full of blood, comes as a shock. This is a sight that is common place in Yap, together with the blood red stains on the roads, as most men seem to chew these nuts, together with crushed coral lime and pepper leaves, almost constantly. The chewing produces a mild intoxication, a mouth full of red saliva and eventual causes the teeth to go black in some cases causing ulcers and even cancer. Lovely.


It being the uncivilised hour of 3am when we arrived we were pleased to see that there was some to great us from our hotel, Pathways, at the airport. Our host and driver waited for a few moments before leaving to make sure the other arrivals were being picked up as after we left there would be no other form of transport left – welcome to island life. During the fifteen minute ride into the main town (this is a very small island so it doesn't take long to get anywhere), Colonia, it didn't take long to get onto the topic of Continental Airlines and their change of flight schedule. This is something that came up in nearly every conversation we had with an islander as it has caused some very real problems for them which make our inconvenience (see the rant under the Tokyo blog entry) seem very trivial. As the flight now goes via Guam it makes it difficult for tourists from countries that need a visa to enter the US (such as Russians) to get to Yap and some hotels are rumoured to have bookings down around 60%.















Our hotel, Pathways, was a definite improvement on Palau, with atmospheric Yapese style cottages built of native materials, set into the hill with a veranda and a view of the bay. Inside was very comfortable with dark woods, white linen and thankfully a ceiling fan and aircon. We settled in for some rest before starting what is the main reason tourists come to Yap – diving.



The main draw for divers to Yap are the Giant Manta Rays. Unfortunately despite there apparently being a “high probability” of seeing them, in nine dives we didn't get a glimpse – I think they must also have been on holiday. The best place to see mantas is in the channels were there are feeding and cleaning stations, which meant a lot of siting around, or clinging to rocks if there was a current, with not a huge amount else to see. We did however, get two excellent dives in – one was Mill Channel when the tides were just right to have incredible visibility and we were treated to a group of more than 20 small sharks circling above us. The second at the aptly named vertigo where we hung on at the edge of the drop off watching a group of 13 pretty large grey reef shark parading in front of us. Highlights of the other dives were a brief sight of an eagle ray, some bumphead parrot fish, plenty of silver tipped shark, and some very feisty Travelli fish, one of wish poised in front of me whilst having the inside of its mouth cleaned by a smaller fish – not a job I would like.



Other than diving, the other thing that Yap is famous for is stone money – discs of up to 12 feet in diameter making them the largest coins in the world. Although the US is now the common currency in Yap, the stone money is apparently still used today for major transactions like the purchase of land and the payment of dowry. Given the size of the coins that are not moved around but are general kept at stone money banks in the villages. We made a very hot and sticky walk to one of these not far from Colonia. What gives the stones value is that they are not quarried in Yap, but instead are transported around 300 miles from Palau, traditionally a perilous journey made by outrigger canoe. Unfortunately, it would have put us way over our weight limit to have brought some over by plane.















A rather entertaining story relates to an enterprising Irish-American adventurer, David O'Keefe, who in the mid 19th century successfully started a business using his ship to carry stone money from Palau to Yap in exchanges for goods. Whilst the money was valued lower than the stones brought by canoe the did offer the possibility for the less well-off to own money and increase their status. As a result O'Keefe was apparently well loved by the Yapese people who refused to trade with anyone else allowing him to maintain a monopoly for over 30 years. There is now a lovely little hotel and a friendly bar named in his honour (he drowned at sea).

Unfortunately our time in Yap was gone too soon and it was time to leave island time and head to Manila. Thanks to Continental's change of flight schedule we had a 12 hour layover in Guam. Instead of sitting at the airport (which could probably only occupy about 10 mins), we headed for the beach which is a convenient 10 minute taxi ride away. As well as being a surprisingly pleasant and relaxing day, this also had the bonus of extending our travel plans to cover and additional continent.