PATS, Pohnpei, Micronesia - June 20, 2001

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Wednesday, June 20, 2001

PATS, Pohnpei, Micronesia

PATS, Pohnpei, Micronesia:

Latitude:	6° 50' 37" North
Longitude:	158° 18' 32" East
Altitude:	126 feet
From Seattle:	5833 miles
Lodging:	Friend / Family - Stacy (PATS)

Today's Travel:

Country:	Micronesia
Region:	Pohnpei
Weather:	Partial Sun / Rain / Overcast

Available Photos:

Nudibranch Manta Row, Pohnpei, Micronesia

Shark Manta Row, Pohnpei, Micronesia

Manta ray Manta Row, Pohnpei, Micronesia

Click on map to Zoom in...

Trip Stats to Date:

Day:	1532
Linear Dist:	284082
Countries Visited:	78
Regions Visited:	293
More stats...
Hotels:	642
Friends / Family:	349
Camping:	135
Hostels:	262
Transit:	100
Other Lodging:	13
Beers:	4705
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Journal Entry:

The morning went a little slower than planned, but we were out in the boat by ten. We had been planning to dive the outside reef, but it was too rough to head outside the lagoon, so we headed to Manta Road. Neither of us had ever dove there, and from what we had heard the changing tide was going to create hellish currents, but we decided to check it out anyway. It was great - the visibility wasn't that great (30 feet), and there was definitely a current, but it was manageable. On the first dive we discovered some amazing coral gardens, some cool nudibranchs, and some nearly transparent ghost shrimp. We'd gotten out of the water and were on our way to another site when we were talking about how we both liked the site so much - so we had the driver turn around to do it again. While we were waiting on the surface a squall blew in - I was freezing and it just wasn't fun in the rain so we cut our surface interval and decided to do a shorter shallower dive. We went the other way down the channel and immediately found several sharks. The currents were worse, but still manageable, and there were more fish and a couple more amazing coral spots. Our plan had been to do a loop and end up back at the boat. When we popped up we were quite a ways from the boat and rather than fight the surface chop we re-submerged to ten feet to swim. While swimming we saw a manta ray! It wasn't that close or that big (six to eight feet across), but it as still very beautiful and graceful. We followed it a bit then swam back to the boat. Back onshore we cleaned up, I did some errands, and then worked on travel plans with Stacy - I'm looking into going to Chuuk on the way back to Guam, and we're trying to plan a trip to Black Coral island on Thursday. Stacy had invited some people to her temporary house for dinner so had to make lasagna. When no one else showed up we got lazy and decided to eat leftover quiche instead. Back at my place I sat up a while playing on the computer and drinking Bailey's.

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