Trip Report Micronesia Pohnpei (May 2018)

Hello

Spent some weeks in Oceania and visited Micronesia's Pohnpei for sightseeing and scuba. It was nice and Id like to give back some information that may be useful for someone else too.

The whole report with maps and photos, please take a look here: Micronesia's Pohnpei sightseeing and scuba diving

May 8 – Finally arriving in Pohnpei after a 26 hours delay
I was supposed to arrive yesterday in Micronesia, but United Airlines canceled the flight and rescheduled it for today.

This morning still in the Marshall Islands, I was looking forward to moving on to the next try to reach Pohnpei, the island with the capital in the Federated States of Micronesia. Unfortunately, the Majuro Airport in the Marshall Islands isn't made of high technology equipment and airconditioning works by wind power. As there is no wifi available at the Marshall Islands airport, the airport ground staff let me use the computer of an employee inside the airport control tower... haha.. nice.. they even allowed to call in Micronesia and arrange Hotel and pickup :)

The whole delay summed up to 26 hours, 26 hours, but it could be worse and I knew the chance that this happens in Oceania is ultimately high. I just hope this is the last time during this trip or else... I will have a BIG PROBLEM as my further flights among those 19 flights in these 5 weeks do not match up anymore.

Arriving in Pohnpei
The United Airline (so-called "Island Hopper") plane comes from Honolulu via small Kwajalein to the Marshall Islands. From there it continues via small Kosrae to big Pohnpei. After arriving this evening in Pohnpei, luckily the hotel staff was already waiting with a car to pick me up and within 15 minutes after leaving the plane I was already in the hotel.

May 9 - Road trip around Pohnpei takes a lot of time
Yesterday evening I arranged a rental car with the reception. It could have been easier, but it was not :( As this week there are different business meetings and events all over Pohnpei, most of the car rentals had no more cars. But no wonder when each car rental company has on average 3 cars on stock. So today morning I was surprised when the car rental owner arrived with an almost brand new Toyota Yaris with good air condition.

There is no shop that sells sunscreen. So thanks to the airport securities in the different countries so far, that they allowed me to take some more of the small sunscreen bottles through the scanners.

On the way to Nan Madol I made a stop at the most famous waterfall in Pohnpei and at another WWII place, where this time there were no WW2 tanks but WW2 cannons. Oh nice, get me there!

Down to Nan Madol now which is located at the shore. There is no entrance sign and no counters, where something needs to be paid. But instead out of nothing suddenly there appearing people on the road and asking to pay the usual “passing-through-their-backyard-fee”, which is always three dollar.

So finally the total of fees to be paid to visit Nan Madol is 1$ parking, 3$ walking-through-their-backyard-fee, and 3$ walking-around-Nan-Madol-fee, which is in total 7$. I knew about this beforehand and it was OK. Not knowing that before, would leave me trying to bargain or trying to avoid paying the fees. But I'm glad I knew beforehand to avoid entrance-fee discussions with these friendly locals. I call it luck that one of my fees to be paid even came with a complimentary 30-second introduction speech to Nan Madol, which assured me that I'm really in Nan Madol.

May 11 - Scuba diving @ Manta Road. (wow!)
Some days ago I already tried to arrange for diving while being in FSM. However, no operator could confirm for sure as it depends a lot on the quickly changing weather and also the minimum amount of divers participating is not given by default. So I was lucky having “Pohnpei Surf Club” taking me out for diving. I asked them if its possible to do the dive spot Manta Road, as this is the best place to see Mantas in FSM and the Manta season this year is still ongoing.

Its USD 160$ for two tank dive with equipment, which is a fair price.

The Manta Road in the northeast of Pohnpei and its famous for its manta ray cleaning station. As the water movement increases, feeding and cruising become a priority for mantas. And when they see food, they go crazy!

Black and white Mantas!
They picked me up at 7am and soon after collecting equipment, we were on the 30 minutes boat ride towards “Manta Point”. In total we were three divers and one guide.

The boat ride was a real scenery watching tour, the unrealistic calm surface of the water this morning and the low tide made this such a pleasant boat ride along Pohnpei. The water was so calm, there was not one wave and then arriving 30 minutes later at the diving spot, the water became so clear, it was possible to see and count the Mantas beneath the water in 15 meters depth.

The whole report with maps and photos, please take a look here: Micronesia's Pohnpei sightseeing and scuba diving

thanks for this update! i'm planning to visit micronesia in december and am open to where i go. this is helpful.

This topic has been automatically locked due to inactivity. Email community@lonelyplanet.com if you would like to add to this topic and we'll unlock it for you.