After nearly 30 hours of flying, waiting in lines to board the planes, and sitting in airports, we were officially admitted to the Federated States of Micronesia! Success! We stepped off the plane onto island of Yap and were admitted into the country through an immigration office that was all outdoors. Once cleared by the immigration officer, we were given beautiful leis by two people dressed in traditional indigenous Yapese attire. We had made it!
Very tired, but very excited to have made it to Yap!
We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday coping with jet-lag (it’s a fourteen hour time difference...basically while everyone on the East Coast of the US is sleeping we’re awake; when you guys are awake, we’re asleep) and diving in the beautiful waters around the islands of Yap. Highlights? We saw absolutely gorgeous underwater meadows full of incredibly diverse, colorful coral. The coral was all so healthy and there were so many different types along the walls. We saw many of the classic reef fish like “nemo”, angel fish, parrot fish, etc. The awesome finds were many sharks, (mainly grey reef and black tip), many colorful nudibranchs (colorful little underwater caterpillar type critters), several octopus (I’d never seen one while diving before!), leopard eel, squid (that change colors when you get close to them), and absolutely most magical of all – a twelve foot manta ray! We saw the twelve foot manta ray when we were in the Valley of the Rays, Stripes (the dive shop identifies their markings and has named most of them), emerged out of the blue and swept in six feet above our heads! She was incredibly majestic and beautiful and she absolutely made our trip to Yap! : )
Stripes gliding above us
Views of the islands and waters around Yap
Since we fly to Palau tonight, we had to observe the 24-hour no-fly rule as we waited for every last dive induced nitrogen to leave our blood stream. So we entertained ourselves in different ways and learned a lot more about the Yapese. We lazed about in the morning and enjoyed another breakfast in our room as early morning showers rippled through the harbor.
Kayaking started at 9:30 and we boarded a boat that held our kayaks and our guides, Iggy and Richard, who whisked us out to the mangroves. Then, we each clambered into our kayaks and headed into little channels with extensive mangroves rising up on either side of us. We spent an hour or two paddling through the mangrove tunnels as Richard pointed out fruit bats, identified different species of mangrove trees, village footpaths, and how different plants were used in the villages.
After our peaceful exploring, we headed to the “Men’s House” that belongs to one of the villages on the island. We passed the bank (which was a collection of stone money – large, round stones, with circles carved out of the center …like a doughnut) and were invited to sit on the porch of the Man’s House where we enjoyed a fantastic snack of local fruits – including the best passion fruit I have ever tasted – it was incredible! We sat on the porch of the house and peppered Richard with questions. Here are some of the things we learned:
One of the villages Man's House
The Man’s House is essentially the town hall for the village, only women are not allowed to enter. Boys are included once they are old enough to behave – usually around the age of ten. The frequency of meetings in the Man’s House depends on the village. It can be daily, weekly, monthly, etc. There are over a 120 villages on the island and their populations range anywhere from 30 to 100 to 500 people.
The Man’s House is made out of the strongest mangrove trees and has a thatched roof. They have to re-thatch the roof every five years to maintain the building – and it’s a village wide effort. The women sew the thatching the men lay the roof.
Stone Money. So I asked the obvious question. What’s to stop someone from making more stone money? Every piece of stone money that’s legit is recorded. No more can be made. When stone money is given as a gift or for payment, the giver/payer explains the recipient the entire history of all the transactions that stone has been a part of—and it is the recipient’s duty to learn the stone’s story and share it with the next person they impart the stone to. For marriages there are fancy shells that the male’s family gives to the female’s family to suggest that the male’s family will take care of the daughter.
The Village Bank of Stone Money
A few more facts… There are no firearms allowed in Yap. They also check all of the ships and flights for snakes, rats, frogs, insects – anything that could throw off the delicate ecological balance of the island. There are no crocodiles. There are also no snakes or monkeys on the island and they really want to keep it that way. Sometimes the locals kill and eat the fruit bats – it’s illegal but it happens.
We enjoyed the peacefulness of the mangroves and have enjoyed our very casual afternoon since then. We are 90% packed now, have paid our debt with the dive shop, and are enjoying one last afternoon with our friends on the Mnuw. We will soon be heading out for dinner and are then off to the airport for a quick flight to Palau! We board the Aggressor tomorrow evening! Woohoo! Yap has been a fantastic first half of the trip! Amazing :)
We celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary this week! It's been a fantastic trip so far!
