If you love searching for intriguing creatures, then you’re certain to love the critter diving on the little islands of Micronesia’s Yap. The area is home to an incredible array of creatures, large and small, and offers exceptional conditions for underwater photography. Grab your camera – we’re about to spend some quality time hunting for critters!
Rainbow Reef
Rainbow Reef, which is located just off O’Keefe’s Island, is an excellent place to dive, both day and night. With an incredibly high concentration of colorful mandarin fish taking shelter among the staghorn coral and even courting and mating each night, plus incredible species like the archer fish, which actually shoots insects from the roots and branches of the mangrove trees that meet the reef here, it is not surprising that this is one of Yap’s best diving destinations. Though it is shallow, with a maximum depth of only seven meters and with many features in as little as three meters of water, Rainbow Reef is an incredible ecosystem that you’ve got to see to believe!
Besides being home to one of the largest known concentrations of mandarin fish, Rainbow Reef also shelters lots of lionfish, plus it is a nursery for juvenile barracudas, reef lobsters, pipefish, octopus, and cuttlefish.
Visibility here is lower than elsewhere around Yap, but at fifteen meters most of the time, is still quite good. After a rain, visibility decreases markedly, and is sometimes as little as five meters – so if you have a choice, dive Rainbow Reef during clear weather for best results!
Slow N’ Easy
A beautiful inshore reef that gradually makes its way from the surface to the sandy seabed at twenty meters, Slow and Easy is also popular at all hours of the day. The entry points are marked by buoys, which makes accessing the site from shore simple for you, and safe for the coral.
The reef is punctuated with outcroppings, and peppered with small niches and crevices, from which a profusion of anemones, crinoids, and sponges emerge in colorful array. Stacked one on top of another, and further decorated with whip corals, these lovely features create an amazing backdrop for stunning underwater photography.
Here, you will find lots of intriguing nudibranchs, well-disguised leaf fish, pipe fishes and gobies, plus some show-stopping white mantis shrimp, and rockfish. Besides these incredible critters, you may encounter some larger fish, including bumphead parrotfish, and grey reef sharks or white-tip reef sharks, plus smaller hawksbill turtles.
Visibility at Slow N’ Easy is usually around twenty meters, though it can be as little as five meters after rain. Careful finning techniques can help prevent cloudy vision too, particularly when there are lots of divers in the water.
Both of these amazing critter dives are simple, and are suitable for novices while being intriguing for even the most world-weary diver. With incredible photo ops that will help you to gain greater skills with underwater photography, plus the opportunity to see some incredible creatures in action, these lovely little reefs are a great addition to any diving holiday in Micronesia.