A group of four picturesque continental islands, and part of the western Pacific’s Caroline Island Chain, Yap offers superb diving and is well known for its Manta rays. With all four islands being connected by a coral reef, plus magnificent drop-offs that provide excellent vantage points for viewing large pelagics, Yap is the ideal place for a wonderful getaway. Let’s take a look at just a handful of Yap’s top dive sites.
Mi’l Channel - Yap Dive Sites
Bordered by Manta Ray Bay and Manta Ridge, Mi’l Channel offers some incredible drift diving along spectacular walls topped with beautiful reefs. While currents here are basically nonexistent during slack tide, they can suddenly rush to as much as four miles per hour with the changing tides – making the area treacherous for beginners, and providing an incredible flight down the middle of the channel for experts.
Visibility is exceptional here, often topping thirty meters. This, combined with the magnificent abundance of coral that coats the walls, makes Mi’l Channel an ideal spot for underwater photography. Besides the Mantas that often fly through the area, you will find octopus and lobsters, large barracuda and reef sharks, eagle rays, and schooling jacks and snappers, plus the occasional hawksbill turtle.
Yap Caverns - Yap Dive Sites
This series of magnificent canyons has a maximum depth of just 18 meters, a very light current if any, and visibility that often reaches or exceeds 30 meters. With massive coral outcroppings, chimneys and chasms to explore, Yap Caverns is truly a little piece of paradise. Here, schooling tuna and amberjack position themselves outside the entrance, while moray eels and occasional stingrays hide inside.
The sun penetrates these caverns via holes in the reef top, illuminating the hard coral walls, which are covered in a rainbow of soft corals. White tip reef sharks lie in sheltered sandy places, and schools of very large Parrothead Humpbackfish can be found among the many other reef fish that make their homes here.
Yap Corner - Yap Dive Sites
At Yap Corner, steep walls covered in soft coral and anemones drop all the way from 6 to 100 meters, attracting masses of pelagics. Visibility is almost always excellent, frequently exceeding thirty meters. This is an excellent vantage point for viewing schooling snapper and jack, barracuda, and eagle rays, plus some very large oceanic gray and white tip reef sharks.
Lionfish Wall - Yap Dive Sites
Dropping from just five meters below the surface to meet a slope at forty meters, which descends to a ledge at sixty meters, then drops away into the abyss, the wall is beautifully carpeted in daisy corals and brilliantly colored crinoids. A light, steady current keeps the coral, fish, and abundant invertebrates here happy and healthy, and visibility is often better than 45 meters.
Look for an abundance of lionfish hiding in the wall’s multitude of cracks and crevices, and be sure to take a look out into the blue, where you can usually see very large tuna, barracuda, groups of eagle rays and manta rays, turtles, and sharks.
Magic Kingdom - Yap Dive Sites
The reef at Magic Kingdom follows a gradual slope, from five to thirty meters. Once carpeted in staghorn and lettuce corals, the area was decimated by a typhoon in 1992, however it is beginning to rejuvenate itself, and the coral which was destroyed during the storm offers shelter to a multitude of tiny reef fish and juvenile pelagics. Visibility is normally excellent, often exceeding thirty meters, and the strong hard coral formations, which escaped the typhoon with minimal damage, are still magnificent. Schooling jacks and barracuda in the hundreds can be seen hunting, along with grey and white tip reef sharks.
While these are just a smattering of Yap’s best dive sites, they are a good representation of all the islands have to offer. Whether you choose to stay at one of the area’s wonderful resorts, or if you decide to enjoy the luxury of a liveaboard, you are certain to have the time of your life as you enjoy exploring Yap’s beautiful underwater world.