Are you ready to dive Yapak?
Yapak – A World-Class Dive Site and Boracay’s most exciting and most challenging dive
So, you have heard about Boracay’s world-class dive site, Yapak. Now think… Are you ready to dive Yapak?
Are you at least an Advanced Open Water Diver?
Have you done and logged deep dives to at least 30 meters?
Have you had no problems equalizing in your recent dives?
Have you had no weighting problems in your recent dives?
Have you had no buoyancy issues in your recent dives?
Does your rate of air consumption easily and generously allow you stay for a minimum of 45 minutes in a dive?
Are you able to watch and maintain your depth in case of sudden up or down currents?
Are you ready for surface current or underwater current swims?
Are you ready for a boat ride in strong wind and surface currents, and with big waves crashing against the boat?
Do you have your own dive computer or have you used a rental dive computer before on a dive to around 30m?
Do you have either have your own complete dive gear or have dived with our dive centre’s rental gear?
Have you dived off an outrigger boat before?
Have you done a backward roll entry from an outrigger boat?
Have you done both a “negative entry” and “negative descent” into the blue to 25 to 30m without visual natural reference (neither descent line, wall or bottom)?
Are you willing to commit not to consume alcohol 24 hours before the Yapak dive?
If you are confident answering yes to these questions, you will surely enjoy Yapak! If you are not, we will help you get the confidence you need through supplementary dives or additional training, which can range from a full Advanced course, or our recommended Deep Diver specialty course, to something so simple as one “checkout” dive with us, where we can sort out the proper combination of rental equipment and weighting, where you can feel confident and secure with this set of rental equipment, where you will get the chance to practice negative entry and negative descent and demonstrate your proficiency, buoyancy and air consumption to us.
Requiring a checkout dive or what we call a “Yapak Scenario Practice Dive” with us is our way of manage avoidable risks. By giving you a chance to practice a negative descent from an outrigger boat with the gear you will be using, and us a chance to observe you in the water (particularly with regards to buoyancy and air consumption), both you and we will be able to plan the dive, be more comfortable and enjoy the Yapak dive more! The checkout dive itself will be an exciting dive, for instance on one of our two great wreck dive sites, or another deep reef (depending on what can be planned).
The Dive
After a thorough briefing by the divemaster, you will make a 10 minute boat trip to the site. 3 to 5 minutes before you reach the dive site, the dive crew will help you get ready for the dive with full gear while boat is moving. You will be asked to make sure that there’s absolutely no air in your BCD in preparation for the negative descent by sucking out any remaining air through the oral inflator. Our experienced dive and boat crew will find the entry spot by triangulating landmarks and considering the push of the current as there are no buoys to mark Yapak.
Everything happens quickly after that, with the divemaster counting three, two, one, go! Everybody is then expected to do the backward roll entry all at the same time with empty BCDs (negative entry), exhale deeply and swimming down to 5 meters signaling to each other “ok” and “down” (make sure you don’t bob up to the surface as you will drift away from the entry site due to the strong surface currents, and the boat will be tossed around by the waves, and you can easily hit your head on the propeller or the outriggers).
This is an absolute blue descent without any physical landmark visible until 20-25m, so your dive guide (who will be navigating using a compass) is your only visual reference. Any delay during the descent (e.g. due to inability to do a negative descent) may cause the current to push you out further from the wall, which means you may have to swim against the current to get to the wall, spending valuable air and bottom time (the sign is that you are still in the “blue” even at 32 m).
Continue the descent preferably headfirst and following your dive guide, while not forgetting to equalize, until you reach the top of the wall.
Congratulations! You’ve made it to Boracay’s World-Class dive site, Yapak! Enjoy!
Stay close to your buddy and watch your dive guide. Stick to the dive plan and stay at the edge of the wall between 30 and 35m. Check your gauges and signal “low on air” when you reach 70 bars (as it is going be a slow and long safe ascent from the deep, so you may need more than 50 bars of air in your tank).
The dive guide will signal to all to start the ascent once someone is low on air or when there is 2 minutes of no-decompression time left. Keep your dive guide as visual reference as again this is an ascent in the blue. Watch also your depth gauge as there could be up or down currents.
The dive guide will signal a safety stop at 5 meters for 3 minutes. The dive guide will deploy a surface marker balloon to alert our boat and other boats in the area of divers below. Stay with your dive guide to be safe from passing boats, for ease in boarding the boat and to avoid surface swim to the boat in case of surface currents.
The dive guide then signals to go up to the surface. Mind your head, stretch your hand up, look up and around, watching out for outrigger or parts of the boat. Again, the boat’s engine will not be turned off so watch out for that spinning propeller and the outriggers crashing into the waves and surface.
Inflate your BCD on the surface and make a line or a queue behind the dive guide holding on the BCD back armhole or regulator first stage of the person in front of you. The boat will glide towards the group, with the dive guide steering the group towards the boat between the hull and the outrigger. As you reach the boat, let go of the others and grab the ropes around the boat for this purpose. Wait for your turn to hand over your gear to the boat crew.
When it’s your turn, hand over your weight belt first, then your BCD. Keep your fins and mask on in case of waves and if you need to swim. At the ladder, hand over your fins and go up to the boat.
Enjoy what’s left of the adrenaline rush with hot towels on board and an excited chatter about everybody’s experience! Until the next Yapak dive, it will make you want to come back for more!