The 3-day sail from Woleai Atoll to Yap Island in Micronesia was adventures. First we passed just south of the deepest place on earth, the Mariana Ditch, about 11 000 meter deep, deeper than Mt Everest, 8 848 m, is high. We had nice weather to start with, sun and good wind and some rainsqualls. On the second day we got a “knock-down”, the wind suddenly increased to 20 meter per second and the boat heaved badly. My cabin got drenched as I had my hatch open and the jib partly ripped apart. The next day we sailed with the main and genua and arrived the 3rd day in Yap harbor where we anchored. We were cleared in and found a tailor with a sewing machine who could repair both jib and gennaker. There were four other yachts in the harbor, two from USA, one from UK and one from Germany.
Yap only has about 7 000 people and is a very traditional island nation. It is the only state on earth where the high chiefs can overrule the politicians where issues of culture/traditional lifestyles are concerned. This of course can create frictions between the politicians and the chiefs. The most interesting aspect of Yap is its stone money, on the car number plates it says: Yap – Island of Stone Money. The stones are huge, up to four meters in diameter with a hole in the middle so the stone can be carried. They are situated in various places, up to 50 in each “bank”, and seldom moved as everyone knows who owns what stone and the value of it.
The capital of Yap is Colonia, a small village with low houses with verandas and balconies painted in green and white. All signs are hand painted, even the sign on the court house. We rented a car and toured the island and its villages, but were not that much impressed, we had seen the real thing in the outer islands and on Yap there were electricity, cars, phones and shops. We had two waterholes, the modern Manta Ray Hotel with an old Indonesian sailing vessel as bar & restaurant, and the more traditional colonial style Ocean View Hotel. Half of the crew moved in to the Manta Ray Hotel during our stay in Yap. In Ocean View we met a big Chinese delegation from Chengdu in the middle of China, a private real estate company hoping to exploit and develop the northern part of Yap with luxury hotels, golf courses and casinos. They had with them bankers and lawyers and wanted to lease land from private landowners. One evening they held a banquet for the highest chiefs on the island and we were able to observe both the Chinese and the chiefs a bit. Whether luxury hotels and casinos are good or bad for the people of Yap I don’t know; tax revenues and poorly paid jobs versus keeping the traditional lifestyle intact is the issue at hand. But it was interesting observing the Chinese yuppies in their 30’s and 40’s, it’s they who will run the world soon. They were rather rude sometimes, bossing the hotel crew around and showed “newly rich” manners. The women were very thin and pale, dressed in transparent Barbie-outfits, sunhats and modern glasses with famous brands. The architects the Chines brought were Americans who had designed the famous artificial island The Palm in Dubai that we visited in 2010 with Jennifer. To quote our crew member Thomas: So – as to Yap’s past, present and Chinese (?) future – Follow the money!
Yap is famous for its good diving and we made four dives with a dive operator as it was difficult to get to the dive sites with Jennifer. One dive was with mantas, at their so called “clearing station” where smaller fish cleaned the mantas. These fishes are huge, up to 6 or 7 meters in diameter and glide majestically through the water like large jumbo jets. Two dives were at the southern tip along a wall with colored fishes, corals and caves and one dive at the northern end with sharks. One dive boat was already feeding the sharks and its divers hid behind a coral head at about 8 meters deep. We passed the spot on a drift dive with excellent visibility at 20 meters depths and saw perhaps 10 sharks circling the feeding spot above us. It was an exciting dive.
After a week at Yap we continued the two day sail to Palau, 260 NM further to the southwest, with its famous Rock Gardens (see photo).
Regards Lars