This is Chip (or, as the Micronesians and now I call him, Chips). He was my legal traveling companion, we staffed 4 National Senators for their committees.
Yap, unlike Pohnpei, has beaches on the main island. It's a tiny place, home to only 7,000 people, and is the most traditional of the FSM states. Some men here still wear the thu - a loin cloth. Looks fine in a village, not so sure about the supermarket.
I like this easy store volleyball net.
There are lots of traditional huts all over Yap.
Yap is the home of stone money. The value of the money derived from the difficulty in getting it from Palau and bringing it back to Yap in canoes. The more lives lost on the journey, the greater the value. It's really cool stuff, kept in people's gardens, or in 'banks' lining the sides of the street. The money is never moved, but the new 'owners' transcribe their names on it, or just remember which is theirs. US dollars work best for most transations though.
Yap was the last state visited, so I took some time off and went diving. Chips and I got to see giant manta rays, and lucky for you, we hired an underwater camera to record the spectacle. They are truly the most amazing creatures, so big and quiet and majestic. And playful- mantas have killed quite the number of skin divers, by floating over the top of them. When the diver swims sideways to get out from under them to surface, they follow on top of them, 'playing'. I guess the thought that some creatures don't 'breathe' water never occurs to them. So, the divers drown. One of the senators has had this happen to him - but he just punched the Manta and it got out of the way. Such a tough dude. Anyway, we had SCUBA, so we wanted the mantas to float over us!
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