The Movie - Part 1

Kirsten spent ages cutting together this video of the first six months of our travels. Enjoy! Note: If this doesn't work, use the lower quality version embedded below.

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.

Palau

...where the rainbow ends.
Well it certainly does rains here, and after a change of plane in Guam, and a brief stop in Yap, we finally arrived, late at night, in poring rain, to our Pacific paradise. Due to budgetary constraints, our hotel room overlooked the Shell oil depot rather than the crystal blue waters. Never mind.

Keen to start the diving, we pitched up at the closest (non-dodgy looking) dive centre (Sam's on maliki), signed up for a 2-day advanced open water course and opened what would prove to be a very large tab.















Our diving companions included some of the crew of the USS O'Kane (including the captain it transpired), in town on route from Pearl Harbour to Hong Kong. Normally you'd expect a destroyer with 260 crew to upset the peace of a group of islands with a population of only 20,000, but apart from the 'free' beer at the Sam's party going in under 5 minutes, there was no trouble. The first dive site was German Channel – a little dull until we'd be down for 40 minutes, waiting round the cleaning station, when a large Manta Ray turned up to make the whole thing worth it. On the second dive, there were a couple of Grey Reef Sharks – ten-a-penny here as it turns out. On the way back we called in at Jellyfish Lake. Here in this small saltwater lake, the Jellyfish, having no predictors, have evolved away their stings, leaving you safe, if somewhat nervous, to swim with the 100 million of them. Get out to the middle of the lake and their density becomes incredible.















Day two's diving started with the wreck of the Iro – a Japanese Oiler, sank in WWII. The bow sits at 18m, while the stern is at 28m. Like all 60 year old wrecks sitting in tropical waters, it's hard at first to distinguish it from a reef – only when the skeleton of the bridge loomed above us, did it become clear what it was. The second dive was Ulong Channel – this produced half a dozen reef sharks that circled us, before we drifted through a channel with spectacular lettuce corral to the right, and three of Palau's famous giant clams. After completing our final dive of the advanced course (navigation), we were taken into Chandelier Cave. This has four chambers with breathable air, and the sensation of surfacing inside a large cavern was surreal. We explored all four chambers, before turning off the torches and swimming out using the faint blue light of the entrance. As we reached the first chamber, six divers with torches entered – silhouetted against the entrance, and with the blue torch beams, it was all very “Close Encounters”. We swam out beneath them, unnoticed.















Day three we took the long boat ride south to Peleliu. The weather was not promising, with heavy sea and hard rain – I got the wetsuit on as the spray socked us. However, as soon as we got under the water it all changed, with vivid blue water and excellent visibility. Both were wall dives, with a couple of turtles and sharks for entertainment. Peleliu is also famous as the site of one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific campaign, with 2000 US and 11,000 Japanese casualties in nearly three months of fighting to take a 5 square-mile island. We took a tour of the island to see the rusting remains of US and Japanese tanks, landing crafts and planes. As it turns out the island and its airfield was of little strategic value to the Americans.















We'd planned a break from diving, but it gets addictive. Day four started with the Virgin Blue Hole – possibly so called because it's tighter than the more famous Blue Hole. Swimming out over the shallow reef, the hole is about 8m across and plunges down to 30m. At the bottom it opens up into a long cavern, which emerges on the reef wall. The second dive was similar, starting with another blue hole, and throwing up plenty of turtles. As a treat for being good, we did a third dive on Jake's Sea Plane – a Japanese sea plane bombed by the Americans and now lying in fairly shallow water at c. 15m.















Finally breaking the diving addiction (although not actually saving any money), we took a kayak tour around the beautiful Rock Islands. After our boat drop off, we paddled round with our guide for several hours, absorbing the tranquility of the many lagoons, while getting slowly sunburnt. We'd arranged an overnight stay on a beach, so around late afternoon they dumped us on a beach with two kayaks and a mountain of camping equipment (which they ensured me would fit in the kayaks' cavities, if we were inventive). While pitching the tent under the trees I couldn't help noticing that the whole place was littered with crab holes (it was already crawling with hermit crabs, but they're cute). After a poor reenactment of The Blue Lagoon, we cooked super and settled down on a rug near the water. This being a full moon, there was plenty of ambient light, and one couldn't help noticing that things were moving. In fact the entire crab population was on its way the the sea. They gave our rug a wide berth (although one did scurry over Kirsten's hand), and froze whenever you shone a torch at them, so we just carried on drinking the Bud.

Things were not to turn out so well for the crabs however: At about 7:30 a boat turned up with six men. They said hi, then proceeded to fill two large sacks with crabs in about ten minutes, and disappear. Although many crabs survived the cul, it was just not the same.















The next day, having stuff the tent, bed rolls, gas stove and god knows what else inside the kayak, we slowly paddled back, wondering which would run out first: the water or the sun screen.

So yet more diving – this time the incredible Blue Corner, and it lived up to its reputation. We hocked on at the edge of the drop off, and stayed there for 20 minutes as 15 massive Bumphead Parrot Fish swim around us, together with Napoleon Fish and Grey Reef Sharks.















For our last day in Palau, rather than the sensible option of going diving, we chose to do a dolphin encounter and free dive. For the short ride out to Dolphin Pacific they insist you wear a life-jacket - after spending days getting soaked on the back of a dive boat, this seemed a little pointless. The centre is more popular with Japanese tourists (the founder is Japanese), which worked out well for us, as there were only three in the English language group. We began with a tour of the centre, followed by a meet-and-greet with the facility's seven Bottlenose Dolphins (two males and five females). After stroking a dolphin and getting a kiss, we were treated to a rare sight – a dolphin having a crap two yards from our faces.

The main point of coming here was to free dive with dolphins, so we kitted up and got into a pool with two of them (plus half a dozen Japanese tourists). The dolphins have been trained to dive down with you. So, if you dive down deep, you get your own pair of pet dolphins swimming round you. The only thing to remember in this situation is that dolphins can hold their breath a lot longer than humans. The other didn't seem keen on going much below the surface, so we rather hogged the dolphin action.

The only thing left to do on Palau was pay the bill at Sam's (it still hurts), then get thoroughly drunk before the 1 am flight to Yap.