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Our current location is 7 degrees 30′ North, 133 degrees 30′ East. We are in Koror, Republic of Palau, another island which was bombed by the Americans in 1944. This was a fierce battle between the Japanese and the U.S. and thousands of people died in these beautiful islands. They say, more people died here than live here.
Nowadays it is very peaceful and all tropical paradise. We arrived here 2 days ago and did our first dive day with ” Fish and Fins” dive shop today. We finally found some great diving again. There are walls, big drop-offs, lots of coral and schools of hundreds of tropical fish ! We came pretty close to reef sharks ( fairly harmless ), saw turtles, huge Napolean Wrasses, barracudas, large mackarels and schools of hundreds of tropical fish.
At the ” Blue Corner” dive site, Gabi tried out her new reefhook. We were hanging at the edge of the abyss and peering over the wall into the deep blue with reef sharks chasing smaller fish. Pretty cool for us, not so much for the smaller fish !
Above water, we cruised between the Rock Islands, which are an amazing sight. Hundreds of limestone, mushroom shaped islands with the ocean chewing at their bases. They are covered by dense green rainforest, a nice contrast to the blue sky and turquoise water color. This is finally how we expected the tropical Pacific to look like ! Diving here today was worth carrying all that equipment around the globe ! I probably have nitrogen narcosis by now !

Last night we went to the airport in Yap for our flight to Koror, Republic of Palau. It was an interesting airport experience. We are the only passengers when we check in our suitcases at the "air-conditioned" , open-air Continental Micronesia counter. Luggage is searched by hand, no x-ray on the premises. The scale is not working, so we could have taken even more stuff without paying for overweight luggage. Next, we are sitting on a bench looking at the terminal entrance, which doubles as the boarding gate, and is locked with a gate out of steel bars. The floor is painted in betelnut-red color to match the constant spit of betel nut juices from the Yapese. Our Yapese family is giving us a beautiful handwoven flower lei as our farewell gift. Next, we are urged by the security staff to pass through the checkpoint. All waiting passengers have to be screened and then wait for boarding in a prison-type, caged open-air room, prior to our plane touching down on the runway. We are about 4 passengers waiting in our prison cell at this point. Next, I see 2 Yapeses fire engines, with red lights flashing, driving onto the airfield

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It seems strange, but in the last few centuries, the European powers seemed to be venturing all over the world, even into the smallest islands, where one would almost wonder .. why? Mostly of course, they were either economic or military reasons. The first 2 German ventures were; one on the island of YAP, copra production, the extracting of the coconut oil from the meat of that plant, and two; on the island of Angaur , phosphate-mining operations. The German Period was relatively short-lived, only from 1878-1914. Their contributions to the islands rests mainly in social disruptions of the island lifestyle, by forcibly relocating laborers and by altering land-use policies. Not a real good legacy! But then most of the colonial powers created havoc wherever they went! German missionaries also tried to Christianize( with a lot of success) the “natives”. Even today there are German missionaries on the islands.
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The Germans were in Yap from 1899 to 1914, the Japanese followed as colonial power from 1914 until 1944. The Americans took the island during WW II and, in the process, destroyed Japanese
” Zero” fighter planes, parked on the ground. We followed the “Lonely Planet” descriptions and toured the island on our own. We saw things in Yap, that the local tourist office or our host family did not know anything about.
We drove to the old airport runway and saw 2 Japanese ” Zeros” with bullet holes, bent prop and broken wings, left there since 1944. Gabi took lots of pictures for our friend John Caufman, who is a military history buff. Next, we walked through the jungle and found another Japanese plane wreck, as well as the tail section of an Air Micronesia Boeing 727, which ran off the runway in 1980. I read the NTSB Accident Investigation Report ( NTSB-AAR-81-07) :
“The downwind leg was flown at an altitude of 600 feet above the runway 7 elevation while the crew checked to see if the runway was clear, to see if the fire truck was in place, and to see the direction of the windsock. When the aircraft was aligned with the runway heading, it was about 480 feet above runway elevation at a point 1.5 miles from the approach end of the runway.
At 09:52 the aircraft touched down 13 feet short of runway 7. The right main landing gear immediately separated from the aircraft. The aircraft gradually veered off the runway and came to rest in the jungle about 1700 feet beyond the initial touchdown. A severe ground fire erupted immediately along the right side of the aircraft as it came to rest. All occupants had evacuated within about 1 minute after the aircraft came to rest.”
Looking at the wreck gave us some chills. At that time, we did not know that nobody was killed during this crash. Gabi briefly had some second thoughts about going back on a plane, after seeing all this bent metal.

In the evening we went to our favorite restaurant ” Pathways” for dinner. The restaurant’s hostess was a fruit bat, eating from a coconut while hanging upside down at the entrance. Different countries, different customs. Driving home on a full moon night, I had to watch out for only 2 things : dogs sleeping in the road and lots of land crabs trying to make it across to visit relatives on the other side of the road. At least they were smaller than the African elephants !

We had breakfast in our room this morning with the following items from these countries :

Ultra-pasteurized "fresh" Milk -  New Holland, Pennsylvania, USA

Bottled Water -  Taiwan

Guava Juice -  Mexico

Sugar -  New South Wales, Australia

Cereal – Tarrytown, New York, USA

Nutella -  New South Wales, Australia

Coffee -  Australia

Bread – Colonia, FSM

We also have San Miguel Beer from the Philippines, toilet paper from China, beauty soap from London, GB and our Nissan Sentra comes from Japan. We are about 9.5 degrees North and 139 degrees East. 

Everybody has a fat cheek. Yapese constantly chew betel nut and, as a result, are always mildly intoxicated. I noticed the swollen cheeks and initially suspected a dental problem ! Once I saw the red spit hit the ground all over the place, did I figure out that the bulge in the cheeks of the local people was the betel nut. Everybody carries a small pandanus-woven pouch, which contains betel nuts, lime powder and pepper leaves, similar to our cigarette packs. The nut is sprinkled with lime powder, then wrapped in a pepper leaf and kept in the cheek. It colors the saliva bright red and the red spit is ejected frequently. Things move slowly here, the speed limit is 25 MPH. Probably a good idea, considering the oppressive heat combined with the effects of the betel nut.

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On YAP, this is more blatantly evident than in most cultures we visited. Yapese men are responsible for fishing and climbing coconut trees, which are hatched at 1 foot intervals, all the way to the top. Besides that, they can rest in their men’s houses ( structures, that woman may not enter), chew their betel nut, and help produce little Yapeses. Women, on the other hand, are responsible for the rest of life, producing and taking care of the children, minding the crops, especially the taro patches, cooking, weaving of all essential products needed in the household, cleaning. laundering, serving and servicing the man, etc., etc.,etc. Lothar got scowls from the man of the house, when he took his dinner plate to the sink to be rinsed. He was told, that was women’s work. Gabi’s blood pressure doubled in an instant! Since it is usually very low, this might be a good way to get it up.:twisted: I kindly explained that in the western world, this was very normal! He knew that though, because he had spent a few months in NY with his daughters. I think , he liked it the Yap way. Who can blame him.:evil:

Dive day #2 did not go quite as smoothly as # 1.
We boarded our boat, had a wonderful drive through the mangroves out of the channel, and continued on to the Miil Channel. Strange, we thought we were going to the reef. That was what had been agreed upon the day before. No, we were again going to the mantas…….the obnoxious German group at the back of the boat had insisted upon it. The Yapese are too polite to argue with anyone, so they just relent. They always try to please, they don’t confront. Originally their ancestors had been from the Indonesian area, where this is an attribute of the people. We had already learned this phenomena in Thailand. So, off to the Channel we were. We weren’t pleased about the situation because we prefer to do different dives, but since we were living with locals, we were considered locals and were receiving reduced prices, so we couldn’t really complain much. We had a different guide today, who seemed to constantly be chewing betel nuts. This could have been what caused our problems.

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So what is a typical Sunday like on a beautiful Pacific island, living with a lovely Yapese family? In the morning we attended a church service in an outdoor church structure, with the Pacific breezes giving us a nice cross wind. The pastor of the church kindly acknowledged the "white people’s" presence at his service and the congregation gaves us a round of applause. Maybe, if they did this back home, we would attend more often As far as the "white people" thing goes, I was insulted, since I have been working on this tan for the last 4 months and I could definitely be regarded as a "brown person" now.:mad: Back to the service………….it was actually very tranquil to listen to the pastor’s sermon, as I was looking at the swaying palms outside. After the service, everyone shook our hands on the way out, as if we were some honored guests. Then it was cookie and punch time. (more…)

The big attraction for divers on YAP is the Manta Ray Dive. Our first day out, luck has it, we have just that on the agenda of the dive plan. It’s a beautiful calm morning and our local dive boat captain, Henry, steers our small skiff from the harbor through a channel of mangrove trees to the Miil Channel, cruising home, to a school of manta rays. They are gorgeous creatures with a wingspan of up to 12 feet, which glide through the waters, like graceful ballerinas. When they approach you from the front, with open mouths, as wide as a tunnel, one could almost be frightened. But then, scuba divers, or actually any fish, is not on their menu………they eat only plankton, which they scoop out of the sea.
We have actually seen these beautiful creatures before, on a night dive on the Big Island of the Hawaiian island group. At that time we really had to hold on to bottom rocks or corals, in order not to be swooped away by the immense water pressure exerted by 15-20 manta rays performing their endless ballet dance.
This time, on YAP, the pressure was not as great, since this was an open channel location and everyone had more room. The only sad aspect was that the visibility was only about 25-30 feet. Not real good, for you non divers.
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