We came back from a great week in Yap. Not to say it wasn't an adventure getting there and back. On the way in, Continental lost one of Bonnie Cardone's bags and - because planes don't fly into Yap every day - it didn't arrive until Wednesday. But Bonnie was like a kid on Christmas Day when everything finally arrived.) Fortunately, we were able to cobble together enough stuff so that she could dive while awaiting the bag's arrival.

On the return this weekend (which is brutal no matter how you cut it since the flight out of Yap is at 4AM), we arrived in Guam only to discover that our flight to Honolulu (shades of last year's Palau trip) was going to be delayed by 5 hours. Seems the in-bound flight the day before had arrived very late, the same crew was flying the airplane back for us, and there's a FAA-mandated rest period between the end of one flight and the start of the next. Understandable. (And who wants a tired flight crew landing your plane anyhow???)

The biggest problem for us was that we had a 3-hour layover in Honolulu to catch our flight back to L.A. and we were going to blow that. But the Continental people assured us that the plane would be held so that everyone on board could make the L.A. connection. Just to be safe, I pulled out my address book and e-mailed some of the higher-ups at Continental and pleaded with them to make sure the plane was held. Interestingly, I not only got e-mails back from both Continental's Sr. VP of Operations and the GM in Honolulu, but they both mentioned that aftermath of last year's fiasco is that they have much better systems in place now to deal with such emergencies. So I guess that was the silver lining out of last year's cloud.

The plane was indeed held (it didn't hurt that there were 120 people on our flight from Guam also on the L.A. flight) and the Continental Honolulu ground staff was really good about getting us off the first plane,. getting bags through Customs and then re-checked, through TSA security, and then on to the second plane. And they even gave everyone a 10% off coupon good on any Continental flight. So that was a nice touch.

But our trip to Yap was really great and it's a wonderful place to spend the week. Once again, we can't say enough nice things about Manta Ray Bay, Bill Acker (the owner), and all of the staff, especially John & Gordon, our two Yapese DMs. We had two good manta encounters and one phenomenal, magical one (think of FIVE mantas lined up in front of you getting cleaned), a nice Mandarinfish dive, and an incredible shark feed, not to mention all the other dives in between. I'm working on the trip report and sorting the pictures and will hope to have those available by the end of the week. In the meantime, enjoy these "teaser" shots:

    

    

    

One of the more interesting encounters happened on the way back at 3AM as we were sitting in the Yap Airport. The plane from Palau landed and they make everyone get off so they can do a security check before the plane continues on to Guam. As the passengers were filing in, I hear a voice shout, "Hey, Ken!!!" It was Curtis Majeurs (one of our regulars) who had just spent two weeks diving with Fish 'N Fins in Palau. he said, "I saw TWARS from Yap and figured I'd probably see you on the plane." So that was a nice surprise.

Locally, we've got the Great Escape this coming Saturday going to San Clemente's backside. The trip is full right now but we are taking a waiting list. Two weeks later (August 10), we've got the Magician going over to the Oil Rigs. We've got space available there (it's about half full as of now). And then on August 23, we've got the Great Escape again, this time to Santa Barbara Island. That one's about 1/3 full at the moment. So see what works for you and give us a call (310/652-4990) because we've been having a blast lately.

BTW, we seem to be getting an inordinate amount of stuff getting left behind on the boats. It's not the end of the world on our end as everything ends up back at my place in Westwood. But for you to come get your stuff, it's not quite as easy as when we had a store. I'm happy to UPS forgotten items back to you and just charge you for shipping or you can arrange a date/time to swing by and come get your stuff. But also realize that - unlike the store - I'm not going to hold on to things forever. If it hasn't been claimed within about a month, I'll either give donate it or toss it figuring the rightful owner doesn't want/need it. But if you left something behind, give me a call because 99% of the time, we found it on our final sweep of the boat.

And that's about it for now. Have a great week (what's with this June gloom????) and let's go diving soon!!!

- Ken (for all the gang at Reef Seekers Dive Co.)