This is the time to be here and when to expect mantas in the biggest numbers and most activity as well as the island's cultural celebrations.

Stay on top of the best months to be here for:

• Yap Day
• Kids Sea Camp
• Manta Fest

There's a unique opportunity to experience some of Micronesia's remote, uninhabited, pristine islands on a scientific expedition researching for Manta Trust aboard Dive Damai.

For those divers with a passion for discovery, this is a trip made for you. Our expedition around the State of Yap will combine the delights of Yap's marine world with that of its cultural heritage.

Five days based at The Manta Ray Bay Hotel will give you ample opportunity to explore not only Yap's marine biodiversity, but its rich cultural heritage. A further five days aboard Damai II will be spent exploring the outer atolls of Yap State, venturing almost as far south as Indonesian waters.

The little dived outer islands within Ngulu Atoll are sure to provide our guests with the unique and spectacular dives we all hope to experience within our lifetime, undisturbed by human touch!

The very fact that they are so rarely visited is likely to mean we will experience the best in marine life that Yap waters have to offer.

We had our annual staff christmas party with a BBQ, awards and bonuses. Some of our guests thought it was a great time to get personal with our staff and kick up some dust with the group... here's Michael and Kerstin making friends with "the best of the best" nitrox blender on island, Matias.

The personal experience is a big part of your Yap vacation.

Football and the Blonde

A guy took his blonde girlfriend to her first football game. They had great seats right behind their team's bench. After the game, he asked her how she liked it.

"Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."

Dumbfounded, her boyfriend asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was... 'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!' I'm like...Helloooooo? It's only 25 cents!!!!"

Psychiatrists vs. Bartenders

EVER SINCE I WAS A CHILD, I'VE ALWAYS HAD A FEAR OF SOMEONE UNDER MY BED AT NIGHT. SO I WENT TO A SHRINK AND TOLD HIM:

'I've got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there's somebody under it. I'm scared. I think I'm going crazy.'

'Just put yourself in my hands for one year,' said the shrink. 'Come talk to me three times a week and we should be able to get rid of those fears.'

'How much do you charge?'

'Two hundred dollars per visit,' replied the doctor.

'I'll sleep on it,' I said.

Six months later the doctor met me on the street. 'Why didn't you come to see me about those fears you were having?' he asked.

'Well, two hundred bucks a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot of money! A bartender cured me for $10. I was so happy to have saved all that money that I went and bought me a new pickup!'

'Is that so?!' With a bit of an attitude he said, 'And how, may I ask, did a bartender cure you?'

'He told me to cut the legs off the bed! Ain't nobody under there now!'

FORGET THE SHRINKS.. HAVE A DRINK &TALK TO A BARTENDER!

We're coming up on one of the nicest times of the year to be here, it starts with the mantas mating and rolls right into awesome conditions and mating mantas and stays like that through the spring.

If you've kept up on our blog we have some manta research that gave us reef shark mating timing and we'll be putting that into the dive plan with the new moon.