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Tully Mars · 11-27-2008, 08:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadNick

Colonia? ...not that I'm looking for a new job, but I stumbled on this one which would be interesting if I was qualified and single:

Category: _DIVING_JOBS
Country: Federated States of Micronesia
Location: Colonia
Position: Dive Base Leader
Salary: DOQ
Job Description:
Dive Base Leader needed on Yap, Micronesia
For a high quality dive resort on Yap we are currently looking for a highly motivated dive instructor, with min. 5-8 years experience in guiding and managing dives.

You and I are reading the same ads. Actually have a friend of a friend who knows the people running that shop. I'm doing some dive master work for her in Cancun over Christmas. If offered I may take that job, though I really think they want someone with a lot more exp.

Yep, Yap is where I'm at.

If I get the position I hope they pay me in dollars-

Quote:

Yap is notable for its stone money, known as Rai: large doughnut-shaped, carved disks of (usually) calcite, up to 4 m (12 ft) in diameter (most are much smaller). The smallest known one is only 7 centimetres (2.8 in) in diameter. There are five major types of monies: Mmbul, Gaw, Fe' or Rai, Yar, and Reng, this last being only 0.3 m (1 ft) in diameter. Many of them were brought from other islands, as far as New Guinea, but most came in ancient times from Palau. Their value is based on both the stone's size and its history. Historically the Yapese valued the disks because the material looks like quartz, and these were the shiniest objects around. Eventually the stones became legal tender and were even mandatory in some payments[3]. The stones' value was kept high due to the difficulty and hazards involved in obtaining them. To quarry the stones, Yapese adventurers had to sail to distant islands and deal with local inhabitants that were sometimes hostile. Once quarried, the disks had to be transported back to Yap via rafts towed behind wind-powered canoes. The scarcity of the disks, and the effort and peril required to obtain them, made them valuable to the Yapese. However, in 1874, an enterprising Irishman named David O'Keefe hit upon the idea of employing the Yapese to import more "money" in the form of shiploads of large stones, also from Palau. O'Keefe then traded these stones with the Yapese for other commodities such as sea cucumbers and copra. Although some of the O'Keefe stones are larger than the canoe-transported stones, they are less valuable than the earlier stones due to the comparative ease in which they were obtained. Approximately 6,800 of them are scattered around the island.

Yer up Nick!