“Micronesia's Mystical Isles Where Mantas Dance” is the official slogan of the Yap Visitors Bureau. A more specific, if less poetic, description of the destination would be “one of the best places in the world to dive with manta rays.”
Learn more about diving in Micronesia.
Manta rays are a revered element of Yap culture, seen as a physical manifestation of ocean spirits and symbols of strength and luck. Their graceful movements are incorporated into traditional dances, celebrated in carvings and depicted in tattoo art.
Yap's international reputation as a manta ray mecca traces back to Texas-born Bill Acker, who came to Yap in 1976 as Peace Corps volunteer, fell in love with the islands and never left. He soon became an avid snorkeler, and a decade later, one of the island's first certified divers. Shortly thereafter, he founded Yap Divers.
Despite the near omnipresence of mantas on numerous dive sites Acker pioneered, the rays were not initially considered the region's main underwater attraction. This changed when Skin Diver's Bill Gleason visited the following year and immediately recognized the unique circumstances that would make Yap world famous in diving circles.
What set Yap apart from other destinations known for mantas was the consistency and sheer numbers of rays found in local waters. The rays were there year-round, with populations numbering into the hundreds, and they made predictable appearances on reefs and lagoon channels. At some sites, the rays are there to harvest nutrients from plankton-rich tidal flows. At others, they come for the cleanings.
When weather patterns shift into the rainy season in late May, with winds turning to the west, the rays move to cleaning stations on the island's eastern shore. The most famous east-coast site is Valley of The Rays, where mantas congregate at a cleaning station on large pinnacle covered in lettuce coral. On a busy day, mantas will circle this formation like airplanes in a holding pattern as they await their turn for parasite removal.
While mantas take center stage at Yap, divers have a lot more to discover. The four closely spaced islands of the Yap State are surrounded by a large, shallow lagoon set within a 90-mile ring of barrier reefs. Mangrove forests line the shores, providing a biodiverse habitat for a wide range of juvenile marine life. Sand-bottom lagoons, seagrass meadows and coral heads harbor macro life. Passes provide exhilarating drift dives. Open water sites offer a mix of coral-covered slopes, intricate swim-throughs, walls, wrecks, caverns and high-relief canyons patrolled by white-tip, black-tip and reef sharks.
Above the waterline, the islands of Yap offer a fascinating glimpse of traditional Polynesian culture where massive carved stone disks are used as ceremonial currency and history is told through dance. The vast majority of the coastline and interior remains forested and undeveloped, with just a handful of roads linking small settlements set within lush tropical landscapes.
Yap's most popular dive destination is Manta Ray Bay Resort, which is owned and operated by the Acker family. Over the course of four decades, this property and the affiliated Yap Divers have introduced thousands of divers to the islands' manta rays. Caradonna works closely with Manta Ray Bay and can create bespoke air-inclusive packages to discover mantas and more at Yap.