I SURVIVE THE SHARKS, THE "MOYLE EEL," BUT WILL I LIVE THROUGH THE TYPHOON?

A brush with death tends to bring people closer so it was with our merry group of divers here in Yap and there's plenty more mayhem on the way as I write. But let’s start at the beginning:

We arrived on Yap at 2:00am Sunday morning. I spent ten minutes at immigration trying to explain the concept of an e-ticket to Ralph the Immigration Guy. The good news was after I left I got a flower garland from a local native girl who was wearing nothing but a grass skirt. I thought, "Oh boy, everything they say about Yap and the topless girls are true." It’s going to be a combination of Playboy and National Geographic Magazines. I’d better buy more film.

It didn't take long to find out that the grass skirt girl must have been elected the official topless greeter. After looking around I think they may have a big problem replacing her when she retires.

Whereas the other Islands have a lot of Japanese tourists, Yap seems to attract a lot of Germans. Does anyone else see the irony here? Did nobody tell them they lost the war?

With barely 3 hours sleep we were awaken and told to get our gear together because we would be diving that morning. Going downstairs I got my first look at Yap. It's simply incredible the damage that Typhoons do here. There was one five months ago, and they’ve barely begun to fix the damage. Imagine a big freighter in English Bay tossed up on Beach Avenue or the roof blown off the old Sylvia Hotel or the Stanley Park Seawall totally obliterated and you'll just begin to get the idea.

The big thing here is Manta Rays and Sharks. We got to the first dive sight and after two dives
we sort of see one Manta Ray way off in the distance. They're suppose to come up to the reef where there are “Cleaning Stations” These are underwater sites where small fish come and clean the parasites off the Manta Rays. Obviously the stations were closed on Sunday as we didn’t see a single Manta Ray. I manage to stay down for about 35 minutes. The Dive Master wants me to work on my breathing. I tell him I'll be satisfied to just keep doing it.

Monday is our 2nd and last day of diving here on Yap and it's to be a three tank dive -
that means three separate dives during the day. The first dive is to the same spot we went to on Sunday. We're hoping the “Cleaning Stations" are open and we’ll actually see Manta Rays. It's also a chance for me to work on the Dive Master's breathing plan: Basically he says I can make my air last three times as long if only breathe a third of the time. What he wants me to do is inhale count to five, and then exhale. On this dive we actually see three big Manta Rays. It was awesome to watch these large fish "flying” through the water. As they are plankton eaters and don't have a stinger on their tail, I'm not terribly intimidated by them. My air lasts 48 minutes this time -a personal best! Maybe there is something to this method.

The second dive is an hour boat ride away and it's at a place called Yap Caves - a series of caves and canyons connected by short tunnels - almost an underwater amusement park. My air supply lasts nearly an hour this time. I figure if I can stop breathing totally I can stay underwater indefinitely! The problem is the third and final dive. My son Elan wants to go on a shark feeding dive. This is where they make a big shark popsicle out of old fish heads and tails, and chicken backs, etc - properly aged of course, to make it really
smelly, then coat the whole mess in a lot of blood. Then they suspend the whole frozen mess beneath a float, and as it begins to melt in the 80 degree plus water it begins to attract more and more sharks: big ones, little ones, reef sharks, white tip sharks, black tip sharks, all trying to elbow each other out of the way. The divers are supposed to sit or lie on the bottom, close by, and watch the action.

Sitting on the bottom in a swarm of feeding sharks isn't my idea of fun, but they are one short of a quorum for the dive, and unless I go they event will be cancelled. I say okay figuring I can always just stay on the boat when we get there. When I agree to go three other “chickens” say that if Jeff will dive, so will they. Now I’m trapped, I’ll lose a lot a face if I chicken out and stay on the boat. That's when I came up with the cunning plan I call “The Herring Ball Survival Technique”.

It works like this: When Herring are attacked they form themselves into a big ball: the guys in the middle of the ball have a better chance of survival, hoping that the predators will fill themselves up picking off the guys stuck on the outside. I plan to be smack middle in the group of divers. Anyways, that’s my strategy and I'm sticking with it! There’s a lawyer from Florida in our group: a tall guy with all the most expensive equipment that money can buy. He tends to spend most of his time on the boat posing, stretching and trying to make the rest of us feel inadequate. He’s not impressed with my Herring Ball Technique. He plans to be right up front with his expensive camera.

We arrive at the dive site and take up positions. Naturally Elan is in the front row and I'm about 10 feet behind him lying as flat as I can on the bottom.

They lower the bait ball and in a few minutes, the first sharks arrive and then more and more. The first of our divers bolts back for the boat: a lawyer from Florida. I don't know why. The sharks would never attack a lawyer - professional courtesy!

The shark Popsicle is being attacked from all sides now. You can actually hear the sound of bones crunching as the sharks chomp down on pieces of bone. I pushmyself down flat on the coral bottom trying to make my self as small a target as possible. I’ve noticed that the sharks seem to attack from beneath, so if I’m flat on the bottom I should be safe, unless they have a spatula.

I have a horrible premonition that the shark Popsicle will break loose and land right on my head – sort of like the pumpkin in The Headless Horseman. One of the guides motions me forward. I give him the diver sign for “No Way." That’s a violent shaking of my head from side to side and pointing to the surface with a raise middle finger. . He motions down to my groin. To my absolute horror I notice that I am laying RIGHT ON TOP of a Moray Eel. Judging on where the eel is lining up on, I immediatelyreclassify him as a “Moyle Eel:" (A Moyle is someone who performs Jewish Circumcisions.) Now I have real problem: If I move away from the Moyle Eel I move closer to the Sharks. I solve it by doing the crab maneuver: scuttling sideways about five feet closer to Elan

Eventually the shark Popsicle is consumed and we retreat to the boat bonded together by our near encounter with eminent death. The Florida lawyer is sitting at a table by himself, or should I say with himself.

Upon returning to the hotel we are greeted with the good news that a class 3 Typhoon is headed right for Yap! It will arrive Tuesday (today) night. I’ve only been in one Typhoon that being Vancouver’s Typhoon Frieda in 1962 and it was quite exciting – of course I was only 17 then, and now a chance to live through a real Typhoon – not a laid back west coast one.

Tuesday:
The morning looks like Vancouver: foggy, rainy and miserable - except that it's 75 degrees out. A typhoon may be coming but its business as usual at Yap tours. Elan and I are booked for a kayak tour, and typhoon or not we're going.

After three hours of being drenched kayaking our way through an endless maze of Mangrove swamps in the pouring rain, it's time to go back to the boat and home. Once we're in the boat, the rain and win pick up and you can't see twenty feet in front the boat. It’s at that exact moment that I notice the boat doesn't have a compass, radio or life jackets - I guess the Yap Coast Guard's a bit lapse on these small details. We have no idea where we are and it's getting rougher. And, oh yes, did I mention I typhoon was in it’s way? I can honestly say that this is only the second time in my life I've been afraid on a boat.

Eventually the fog lifts for a brief moment and we see home port and head into port as fast
as we can go. As I write this letter we’re hunkering down waiting for the typhoon to arrive. The authorities have told everyone in Yap to go home and find shelters. I guess the best I can hope for is it will blow by here quickly and not interfere with our planned trip home g tomorrow night.

I will email again soon and let you know how things turn out and where my laundry ended up.