Capturing the Moment

  Almost every night, manta rays come into a few select bays on the west coast of the Big Island, to feed in the shallows on plankton. Snorkeling with the manta rays has become one of the 'must-do' adventures here in Hawaii. However, it is not for the feint of heart. You have to wait for darkness, and be willing to jump into the ocean at night, and share it with creatures that are bigger than you. Luckily, these manta rays are gentle giants. They don't have teeth or stingers, which is nice, because as you will see, they can swim very close to you! Tonight was extra special, as it was the total lunar eclipse as well as our manta snorkel night. We took our boat to a little bay in front of the fancy, Mauna Kea resort. We anchored in about 17ft of water, put out surfboards with special underwater lights in them, and waited. The lights soon got crowded with plankton, and different fish coming in to feast on the plankton. But after thirty minutes, that is still all we saw. Everyo...

  Manta Ray gliding over the reef. Heading out for an exploratory morning snorkel. The weather was a bit strange today so the area up around Puako was the only calm waters to snorkel. I knew there were spots to snorkel here on the reef, but I didn't know how good it was going to be. After getting tied up, we jumped in the water to see what we could find. A dangerous looking crown-of-thorns sea star was spotted early in our snorkel. You don't want to see too many of these on the reef, because they eat coral. I've heard that the spikes of a crown-of-thorns sea star are very sharp, like glass. I haven't tested this out yet. I almost didn't believe my ears when someone said manta ray. But sure enough, here it came, gliding over the shallow reef. I tried to freedive down under the manta so I could get a photo ID. We use the black marks on the underside of the ray to catalogue them. This was an 8ft male named Pu'uwai. Snorkelers and divers unite to swim with mantas. H...

   The mantas that frequent the Kona coastline have been not so frequent of late. In fact we've been getting skunked way more than normal this past year. So it was very refreshing to have multiple mantas back at the campfire for the famous Kona manta night snorkel last night.    At one point we had six mantas in our sight. The plankton was pretty dense in the cove and the mantas were definitely enjoying the plethora of food. We watched them glide over the scuba divers at the bottom, before swimming straight up under the snorkelers at the surface. These pictures of of the manta as it barrel rolled inches under our board. Our underwater lights lit up the white underbelly of the 8+ft coastal manta. The black spots and splotches on the belly are how we identify individual mantas. Over a hundred have been identified at this spot alone on the Big Island.   It is always a good time when you have to remind your snorkelers to lift up their feet so they don't acci...

Manta Ray in Flight Underwater Wall Photos A few days ago on a shore snorkel in south Maui I noticed a bloom of some kind of plankton and mentioned that I thought the possibility of seeing a manta ray might be higher. Then low and behold a few days later who should I run into along the outer reef at Makena but three manta rays!   I've been hearing reports of frequent manta ray sightings by snorkelers in this area lately. Back when I ran trips here our manta encounters were few and very far between. So I was pretty shocked to see three good sized mantas circling back and forth over the north finger at Turtle Town. These coastal manta rays have a pretty small range here in the Hawaiian Islands, usually picking and sticking with one side of one island. Hopefully this means that more manta ray encounters will happen in the future!    Since I was snorkeling I had the flexibility to dive up and down, next to and underneath the rays. This bouncing to di...

 I'm not sure how unusual it is to have a manta ray drought at the famous Kona manta ray night dive location off the Big Island in Hawaii. For three weeks we were skunked, the only sighting being a fleeting vision of one swimming just over the campfire and out of sight. I can remember only being skunked at this location one time in the past two years.  And that is coming here once a week every week from Nov-April. However this week definitely ended the drought. It was practically raining mantas. I noticed for a few days that the plankton levels have definitely blossomed. Another good sign was actually seeing a large manta ray feeding at the surface as we pulled into our manta ray anchorage. Everyone on board got a good look as the large ray swam near the surface down the entire length of our ship. The plankton levels were much higher density than the previous weeks, so I wasn't surprised when we saw mantas hanging out at the camp fire when we first jumped in. Unique ...