Manta Ray Night Dive

  Heidi and I had big expectations of diving on the Big Island. There are fish there that you just can't find on Maui even though they are geographically very close. We did a couple of shore dives through some beautiful, healthy reefs but the big dive was this Manta Ray Night Dive we had heard so much about. Going into it I was hoping my expectations weren't too high.
  We signed up with Kona Honu Divers who came recommended by several people in Kona. We did a 2 tank dive so one dive before sunset on a nearby reef and then one after sunset with the mantas. I will cover the first dive in another post just because we saw so many cool, new things.

  After the first dive we gathered back on board to warm up with hot shower water in our wetsuits and some food in our bellies. It got dark fast and that is when I noticed something moving in the water behind the boat. We had a manta feeding right off of our stern! Here is our first feeding manta and we haven't even gotten in the water yet! I snapped a couple of pictures and movies just by sticking my camera under the surface a few inches. It was amazing to see such a big, wild animal so close. It turns out they get closer than that...

   To give you a good idea of the size of these manta rays, imagine the ray in the picture to the right about 13ft from wing tip to wing tip. Only somewhat related to sting rays, mantas don't have a stinger and they feed on plankton with their huge mouth which is located in the front of the animal as opposed to the bottom.
When the group was ready we descended quickly and formed a circle with our flashlights all pointing up. Snorkelers were on the surface with flashlights pointing down which gave the water a very cool spotlighted effect. The rays were performing a ballet with flips, twist, and graceful turns as they opened their mouth to suck up all the plankton attracted by our lights. Multiple times the huge mantas came so close that they actually bumped my head. I learned pretty quickly that I was going to have to duck to make sure to avoid contact.
We stayed there, on the bottom, watching these graceful mantas for about 45 minutes. Sometimes a bit of a surge would push us around but by holding a large rock between your knees you could stay in place. When the dive master finally told us it was time to head back I felt like I could stay and watch the mantas forever. At one point I counted 8 mantas around me, although by identifying the individual mantas by their black underside spots our dive leader would later tell us 10 different mantas paid us a visit that night.

I have been all over the world looking for wildlife encounters and this one blew me away. It is so rare that you can safely coexist with wild animals, bigger than you, in such a breathtaking way and in such close range. There is nothing else quite like it.

Since words can only describe this experience so much, I put together a short movie from this dive. Definitely check it out so you can see just how magical this experience can be.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hTAb_8nofQ&feature=feedu

Kailua-Kona on Dwellable