Dive #85 - Rich Torkington's Dive Log

A stunning yellow mask angelfish
Videograph by Rich Torkington in Yap 2001

Dive Journal: Barney and Liz have elected to dive with the Japanese divers this morning, since they’re going to continue to survey for manta rays. We’ve asked to go to the southern end of Yap this morning to visit a site called Yap Caverns.

Alberto and ?? are new divemasters who have just arrived at Yap Divers after working around the Red Sea in Egypt. They are extremely friendly and have joined us in order to make some exploratory dives in the area.

It’s overcast and raining as we leave, and when we exit the harbor, the winds pick up and the swells increase in size. We get about halfway there when Kay stops the boat and decides to change the plan. He knows the winds and surface will be even worse at the southern end of the island, and the boat is already rolling and slamming quite a bit. There are some dark clouds down there, too. He finally chooses the more sheltered site of Samakai Wall.

It’s a rough entry but nothing too bad. The overcast conditions cut down on available light, but most of the reef fish don’t seem to care either way. Early on this dive I spy a nice sailfin tang, and this one is finally fully flaired.

Midway through the dive we encounter yet another (or the same!) pair of cuttlefish hovering above the reef. This time I spend even more time getting closeup video from different angles. The cuttlefish slowly darken their brownish hue, something I later learned indicates agitation. I guess they did not care for my close approaches, but they posed for the camera quite a while without fleeing.

Also ran into a nice foxface rabbitfish and a stunning patterned sea cucumber who was easily 30 inches long. The cuke had layers of frilly black colored feet fringed in white which came out from its underside in layers like a skirt. Very cool.

The dive is just wonderful, but I also notice a fair amount of coral damage here. Not just a little bit of bleaching, but plenty of large branches and pieces broken and strewn on the floor. I’d guess that this is due to typhoon action and is in some contrast to the reefs at Kosrae.

SUMMARY OF SOME FISHES OBSERVED ON THIS DIVE:

This list was created by looking over the video footage and identifying each species.

Sailfin tang flaired
Longnonse butterflyfish
Spot banded butterflyfish
Reef lizardfish
Peacock grouper
Crown-of-thorns starfish
Blackside hawkfish
Foxface rabbitfish
Bronze sweeper
Chevron butterflyfish
Pennant bannerfish