Dave returned to Yap after attending the Guam Micronesia Islands Festival, as well as two travel fairs on the US Air Force and US Navy bases in Guam respectively.

Although this photo has nothing to do with Yap, it's an aerial view of the magnificent Talofofo Falls, a sight that shouldn't be missed if visiting Guam.

At the Navy show, Wes (Yap Vsitors Bureau), Debbie (owner of the ESA Bay View Hotel) and Dave get ready to hand out brochures and talk about Yap. Well, Wes and Debbie are ready at least. We're not so sure about Dave.

Here we are at the Air Force show, with Dave, Al (owner of the Village View Hotel) and Wes. What's wrong with that guy on the left?

Seriously, it was a great show and lots of fun!

Okay, so Dave was clowning around in the two photos above. Here he is fully awake with Al.

A variety of entertainment was featured as well, like these native Australians.

A group from Yap performed several dances at the fair.

For reasons unknown to Dave, there was a family of pigs (and piglets) in the Talofofo Falls parking lot, which made parallel parking even more hazardous than it already is.

While Dave was away, Morgan, Mike, John Paul and Joe took care of the shop and our guests. Morgan had some great shark dives at Vertigo, as evidenced by these next three photos.

Vertigo. This site just gets better and better!

Of course, our guests are up front and center to the action.

Dave got back into the water towards the end of the week and after a solo deep dive at Yap Caverns, took the next three photos at Magic Kingdom.

A curious barracuda checks out the camera.

And so does this Bluefin trevally.

This blacktip reef shark was too far away for Dave's camera strobe to be effective. Dave prefers the sharks to be a little closer :o)

Since October is a very slow month for visiting divers, we finally had a few days to complete some repairs to our boats, including reinforcing the deck. In this photo, the deck has been cut out and a new one is about to be put in.

John Paul and Mike take a coffee and ice cream break during the heat of the day before finishing up the new deck installation.

John Paul's wife, Erencia, offers support for the crew.

Mike prepares the deck for the finishing touches.

Andy and Elinor, from England, were still in Yap for the first part of this week's episode. Morgan took the first couple of pictures, starting off with Elinor as she photographs Yap's underwater flora.

Morgan has a knack of getting up close to even the shyest of creatures.

Yap has lots of nudibranchs.

And flatworms too!

My favorite of Morgan's pics this week, though, is this cute pufferfish hiding in the coral.

Fanif Wall features very clear water and pretty coral formations, with loads of crinoids out and about, even during the daytime.

Mike swims along the hull of the Laura Marie shipwreck, lying in 60ft. / 18 m. of water in Yap's harbor.

Inside the engine room of the Laura Marie.

A diver peers into an open hatch on the shipwreck.

The spectacular hard corals of Goofnuw Channel.

A tiny coral crab deep within the confines of his coral finger home.

This little guy was feeding on the bottom substrate. Notice the sediment falling down from beneath his gills, as he would eat what he wanted and filter out the rest. I wish I could do that!

This wrasse also lives in Valley of the Rays. His constant motion, however, makes him a difficult photo subject.

This week's edition is shorter than usual as the rest of the week Dave was doing some deep dives and wasn't able to take his camera, so Morgan filled in with a few shots.

This first one is of Masataka and his brother Hiro, who visited us from Japan for the week. The viz was low but they still saw mantas.

Morgan's got eyes like a hawk, and was able to spot this scorpionfish hidden on the sea floor at Gapow Reef.

Andy and Elinor, from England, are seen here on their safety stop as Andy deploys his surface marker buoy, or safety sausage as it is affectionately called.

Ivy (who dove with us for the past two weeks but left us Wednesday morning) found this cute but hairy crab in a hole close to the manta cleaning station during her visit.

Ivy would put a piece of seaweed near it's hole and the crab would pull the whole thing in. We were teasing her that she was spoiling that little crab and would miss her when she went back to Kwajalein Atoll.

Anyway, Morgan resumed feeding the crab and you can see the dark seaweed at the bottom of the photo.

Stingrays can often be seen on the outer reefs, resting on sand patches.

Mating nudibranchs at 1:2.

A Firedart goby on the outer reef at Choqol Mini Wall. Notice the very tall dorsal fin.

An anemonefish gets cleaned by a wrasse at its host anemone.

A collection of Christmas Tree worms on the coral at Gapow Reef.

Here's a juvenile Black-and-white snapper on the wreck at Hammer Point.

Rihka enters the wreck at Hammer Point and peeks out from an opening.

It's always easy to find great macro subjects at 1:2. Like this egg mass from a Spanish Dancer.

And lots of nudibranchs.

But we can also see bigger animals, like this turtle.

Or a shy octopus.

A very tiny shrimp on the tentacles of an anemone in Goofnuw Channel.

Whitetip reef sharks rest on the bottom of Goofnuw Channel. This one didn't seem to care that Dave got so close.

The Three Amigos! This trio of Pipefish hung out together on the reef. I guess three's not a crowd!

Talk about a frisky Batfish! This guy wouldn't leave us alone, and if you held out your hand, he would nibble on your fingers. Good thing he didn't have teeth :o)

Here's Ivy as she photographs an approaching manta ray.

Well folks, she did it! Miss Ivy Springer, long-time resident of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, completed her 2,500th dive! Diving for over ten years, that's 250 dives per year!

She made a sign to commemorate this auspicious event, and poses with Morgan in Goofnuw Channel.

Dave made a sign too, not knowing Ivy would make one of her own. So we took another photo.

Then Morgan surprised us all by making yet another sign. This one with rocks in the sand. Notice that pesky Batfish getting himself in the frame as Dave snapped the shutter. I guess he wanted to be a part of the celebration.

At the dock we gave Ivy a bottle of champagne and a certificate of accomplishment and Monday morning she went back out for two more dives. That girl doesn't stop!

Thank you, Ivy, for coming back to Yap again and for sharing this diving milestone with your friends at Beyond The Reef. Congratulations for your phenomenal achievement!

Early in the week, Cindy and Harm, from The Netherlands, did a Discover Scuba course with Dave and, upon completion of the class, wanted to see the mantas afterwards. Here they are, at the bottom of Goofnuw Channel, at the start of the manta dive.

We waited at the manta cleaning station for just a few minutes, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Yap's signature underwater attraction.

The mantas showed up as if on cue.

This was the second of two mantas. That's a piece of seaweed and lots of other debris floating past right as Dave clicked the shutter. When the tide is out-going, the nutrient-rich water makes the channel a bit cloudy. But as usual, the mantas didn't disappoint.

On the way to our second dive site, Gapow, situated on the northeast side of Yap, we encountered more dolphins.

Another of Dave's photos. Can you tell he likes dolphins?

We spotted this pod just as we got close to Gapow.

Here's Harm on the outer reef.

Anemones and their resident anemonefish are another of Dave's favorite subjects.

We had some other great dives this week, including a deep dive with Jon and Rihka at Vertigo. Here's a Red snapper looking for a handout.

Sweetlips Hoolihan. Oh, wait... that's not it.

An unamed diver distracted this rather ominous looking moray so Dave could get a good close-up shot.

Rihka got the camera from Dave's hands (since his were occupied letting this hermit crab crawl all over him) and practices her underwater photo skills. Not too bad!

Always one to entertain, Jon's at it again at Yap Corner.

This is a Redmouth grouper. No, seriously, that's really his name and you can see why. This guy was being cleaned by a bevy of shrimp crawling all over his body and inside his mouth.

Here's a close-up view of his mouth, complete with cleaner shrimp inside. I'm glad my dentist doesn't do that to me!

Morgan took this photo of repeat guest Ivy, who lives on the very small Pacific atoll of Kawajalein in the Marshall Islands.

During her two week trip to Yap, she hopes to complete her 2,500th dive! Wow! Stay tuned and see if she can complete that monumental task next week.

Dave did a dive Saturday afternoon at Crescent Reef and had a quiet encounter with this turtle resting on the coral.

For the entire week the weather was phenomenal, the seas were flat like glass,the animals were frisky and we shared lots of laughs with our guests.

On the way to the south, we encountered this pod of dolphins playing near the bow of our boat. Dave managed to get a few quick shots of these playful mammals.

This is the same group of dolphins.

A trio of dolphins make a surface dive.

Pal-Andre, on vacation from his home in Norway, takes our PADI Open Water Diver Course and can be seen here on his first Open Water dive.

On Pal's dive we saw several nudibranchs, like this one pictured here.

Pal-Andre drifts along Telegraph Reef on Dive # 2 for the class.

Morgan, in front, guides the tour portion of the dive through the deep surge channels in the reef.

Of course, no dive trip to Yap would be complete without a day with the mantas, so Pal joined us and had several mantas gliding just above him at the cleaning station in Goofnuw Channel.

Joe and Jon tell stories on the boat between dives. We didn't believe most of them, though :o)

Milien came out on the boat for some snorkeling. She's one of the younger dancers in Jon and Rihka's Pacific Pearls Polynesian Dance Show, and she's an accomplished singer as well. Way to go, Milien!

A resident Popcorn shrimp on its host anemone at Yap Caverns.

This is just a typical reef scene in Yap, showing a rainbow of color and a myriad of marine life. Dave took this picture on a fun dive to Eden at the southern tip of Yap.

Rihka swims along the top of Lionfish Wall. The visibility that day was easily in excess of 150ft / 50m.

Always in search of the tiniest of critters, a diver looks for the ever-elusive pygmy seahorse or other unusual subjects.

As we headed out for a night dive with Pal-Andre, this clearly defined rainbow was coming down over the Yap Community Center (we went over to retrieve a basketball that had gone into the ocean, as the players were waving to us from the court to retrieve their ball).

Anyway, in some strange twist, it looks like the end of the rainbow is pointing towards......Mike???

Finding out he was "at the end of the rainbow", Mike shares his joy.

Pal-Andre, moments before he plunges into the inky-black depths of the night dive. It will be his first, but judging from his reaction after the dive, not his last.

This crab is an egg-bearing female. She sat and watched us as we sat and watched her. A "win-win" situation.

A decorator crab covered in sponges and other marine growth searches for dinner. We often see these crabs during the new moon phase.

Many thanks go out to Rihka, who graciously gives up her alternate air source to a diver in need. Of course, Dave's a big guy (although he's younger than he looks) and these 110 minute dives are taking their toll on his air supply!

Actually, Rihka hasn't figured out that he runs out of air on purpose. Ssshhhh! Don't tell her!

And Rihka, if you're reading this, that light really did go out on its own. Not that I minded, of course :o)

Dave did a lot of diving this week and, as a result, has an abundance of photos for this week's edition.

Early in the week we dove Gapow and encountered these friendly trevallys near the surface.

Sitting on the boat between dives, Salvador prepares his equipment for the next dive in Valley of the Rays. Salvador is from Barcelona, Spain, and has been doing three dives a day for a week. That's Mike sitting behind him.

A Titan triggerfish forages in the rocks for something to eat. Dave stood by, in case the fish couldn't eat it all.

A Butterflyfish amongst fire coral, supplying a nice contrast of color.

The water at the south is generally very clear, as this photo shows.

Salvador drifts along the reef with his camera.

Scores of Humphead parrotfish frequently inhabit Yap Caverns.

Resident barracudas at Magic Kingdom.

The massive Humphead parrotfish chomp on the coral and, in turn, produce sand, in the on-going life cycle of the reef system.

These Bronze sweepers can be found in caves such as this one at Yap Caverns.

Salvador cruises along the deep vertical drop-off of Eden. We saw several grey and whitetip reef sharks, an eagle ray, turtle, a plethora of eels and lots of fish. But most spectacular is the sheer vertical wall that plummets into the abyss.

Gorgonians at Eden.

Hmmm.....I can't think of anything to say about this photo!

This grouper looks thoroughly bored with Dave.

A tranquil sunrise at Beyond The Reef. Notice the sailing canoe in the background behind our boats.

Here's the same sailing canoe an hour later. This particular boat is owned by the people of Satawal, a tiny and remote island 600 miles to the east belonging to the state of Yap.

Continental Airline's weekly Wednesday morning flight from Guam brings a new batch of visiting divers to Yap. This plane was getting ready to land just as we headed out for an early morning dive to Hammer Point.

A lone manta swam by us just under the surface right after we got in the water.

One of many large ship anchors that are strewn about on the bottom at Hammer Point.

Mike checks out the local flora and fauna of Hammer Point.

A grouper is right at home among the fire coral.

A grouper keeps an eye on Dave as a surgeonfish keeps an eye on the grouper.

Schooling Chubs in the early morning.

Wreckage at Hammer Point.

For our "regular" viewers, you may remember Ann from last week's edition. She finished her medical conference yesterday and found time to check out our manta dive (and was successful with a large manta looming over her)!

There are lots of other animals to look for in Goofnuw Channel besides the mantas, like this moray eel.

A Rainford's goby at 1 to 2.

Morgan dove with Paul and Marta from North Carolina, USA, and took this photo of them in Goofnuw Channel earlier in the week.

Marta descends into Miil Channel on the northwest side of Yap.

Someone's got a sense of humor, spelling out "MANTA" with rocks in the sand. Good thing it didn't spell "SOS".