Photo of the Week: September 19, 2011

Hi Gang!

This week’s POTW comes from Yap, one of the South Pacific’s true hidden gems. The island receives less publicity than some other nearby destinations, but that is because those places have bigger populations and bigger advertising budgets, not because their diving is any better. Yap rocks!

Yap is part of the Federated States of Micronesia. It is also the most untouched and traditional of all of the Caroline Islands.

You might know Yap as the land of stone money. At least that is how I often think of Yap because I remember photographs of big pieces of limestone with a hole carved out of the middle that was the traditional currency in Yap prior to the arrival of the Western World. Pictures of that currency appeared in some of my textbooks when I was a kid, and the images made a big impression on my young mind. From the time of my early school days I wanted to go see all that big money, not to mention the bare breasted ladies

In diving circles Yap is known for the island’s resident population of manta rays, an action packed shark dive that is loaded with gray reef sharks and blacktip reef sharks, and a great mandarinfish dive. Those dives are both the good news and the bad news for Yap. The good news is that those dives are really great dives. The bad news is that because those dives often dominate the conversations about Yap, people sometimes get the impression that those dives are all Yap has to offer. Not the case! Not even close. Yap has a ton of great diving with plenty of variety.

This past August I made my third trip to Yap where I served as one of four international photo pros at an event named Manta Fest that is held at Bill Acker’s Manta Ray Bay resort in conjunction with Yap Divers. While no place can deliver their advertised wildlife on cue, I will say that I had only been in the water for about three minutes on my first dive of the trip when I captured this shot of a manta ray at a recently discovered- at least recently discovered by divers- cleaning station in very shallow water. The rays have probably been getting cleaned in the area for a long time.

We were hoping to get on the mantas, but I certainly didn’t expect things to be so good so fast!

The manta rays, Manta birostris, that occur in Yap are the same species as the mantas that are seen in Hawaii as well as in other destinations such as Costa Rica’s Cocos Island, the Galapagos and Mexico’s Revillagigedos Islands. With a wingspan of up to 20 feet and weighing as much as 4,000 pounds (although most specimens are considerably smaller), manta rays are the largest of all the rays. They have a distinctive diamond body shape similar to cownose and eagle rays and belong to the family of rays commonly referred to as the devil rays. The pectoral fins of these rays are greatly enlarged and that characteristic provides an excellent reference when identifying the members of this family.

In addition, manta rays possess two extensions known as cephalic lobes that are positioned in the front of their head. These lobes are usually coiled close to the body. However, when the rays feed, they unfurl the cephalic lobes and use them to guide copious amounts of planktonic prey into their cavernous mouths.

No doubt bout it, manta rays are awe inspiring and spectacular to witness. Often they appear as large shadows on the edge of visibility and you wonder if they are real or what you are seeing is a merely a figment of your desires and imagination. On the good days a graceful form soon materializes and you can’t help but be struck by their combination of beauty and power.

This week’s POTW was created with a Tokina 10-to-17 mm zoom. I lit the scene with a pair of Ikelite 160 strobes. While it was slightly overcast and the water was not at its absolute best, the fact that I was working at a depth of only 15 feet helped me light the overall scene.

I hope you enjoy this week’s POTW!

See you next week,

Marty