40 лет Yap Divers: друзья и гости собрались на праздновании юбилея легендарного дайв-клуба на Япе

Forty years after Bill and Patricia Acker founded Yap Divers, friends, family and divers from around the world returned to Yap in July for a week-long celebration of four decades of diving, friendship and life in Yap. Yap Divers began in 1986, followed by the Manta Ray Bay Hotel, which opened on Yap Day, 1 March 1990. Over the decades, the operation grew into today’s Manta Ray Bay Resort and Yap Divers. Dive-industry luminaries Geri Murphy and Paul Tzimoulis helped introduce Yap and its manta rays to the international diving community, while Mike and Vikki Musto of Trip n Tour Micronesia helped make it possible for divers to actually get there. The anniversary week began fittingly with four young divers receiving their SSI Junior Open Water certifications, continuing a diving tradition that now spans generations in several of their families. Younger guests had adventures of their own, including kayaking, a snorkelling tour for all the kids, and a weaving class hosted by one of Yap’s local schools. Longtime friends and guests gathered throughout the week, including Geri, whose connection to Yap Divers reaches back to its early years. She shared photographs, stories and memories through several presentations on the big screen aboard the Mnuw. The festivities included live music, a banquet spread across the resort grounds, a dramatic Men’s Chief Dance performed at night and a traditional Stick Dance during the day. The week wrapped up with a beach barbecue on the final day. And there was plenty of diving. Even in the aftermath of Super Typhoons Sinlaku and Bavi, divers found excellent conditions at sites around Yap despite the region’s unsettled weather. The week brought numerous manta encounters, spotted eagle rays on multiple dives, whitetip and blacktip reef sharks, schools of jacks, yellow convict tangs and bumphead parrotfish. Dolphins regularly greeted the dive boats, while several groups encountered three cuttlefish laying eggs in the coral and remaining nearby afterward. More than anything, the week was a reunion and a chance to recognize the people behind 40 years of Yap Divers – the staff who have devoted years and sometimes decades to welcoming guests, the Yapese community that has shared its island and culture, the dive-industry friends who helped introduce Yap to the world, and generations of guests who kept coming back. For Bill and Patricia, those relationships have become the real measure of 40 years. Somewhere along the way, many of those guests simply became friends.