Manta Madness

Manta soars overhead on the dive

A must do dive for anyone going to Hawaii is the night dive to experience manta rays feeding on plankton.  The operator to do it with is Kona Diving Company.  Luke, my dive buddy for the week, and I did the two-tank late afternoon and night dive. 

The first dive is an exploration of the site at Garden Eel Cove just offshore of Kona Airport.  It is dive done in the waning hours of daylight, when there is only one other dive boat on the site.  The dive team reconnoitered the area.  We were in a four diver team, not including the leader.  One of the other two divers had an irritating of dropping in from above and furiously kicking whatever was around him.  It got to be quite tiresome after a few minutes, so we gave him a lot of space with which to churn the ocean.  I had seen mantas at this location on a previous late-afternoon dive, but I did not see any today.  Earlier in the day, we observed the impressive aquabatics of the mid-water column courtship ritual of a couple of eagle rays.  We saw nothing as remarkable as that on this dive.

The anchorage was noticeably more crowded when we returned to the boat.  The flotilla of vessels of every type headed to this spot hauling divers and snorkelers who wanted to observe the mantas feeding, a spectacle not to be missed.  The KDC crew presented a rather detailed natural history of the species, including information on the unique patterns on a manta which allows observers to identify individuals.  The crew related that photographers were encouraged to submit photographs in order to identify previously unknown individuals.  If your photograph establishes the presence of a new individual, the photographer may select a name for the critter.

The spot pattern is unique to the individual, like fingerprints in a human.

The crew explained that divers would be stationary on the bottom, shoulder to shoulder, shining a dive light upward, which would illuminate the plankton on which the manta feed.  Snorkelers on the surface would do the same, shining lights downward.  Supplementing these hand-held lights were spot lights placed on the bottom.  Divers went without snorkels and the barrel became protuberances that could scrape on ensnare a manta passing overhead (yes they get that close). 

Boats of every size continued to arrive at the site.  One of the catamarans carrying snorkelers tossed our boat a bow line which the crew secured to a clean on our stern.  The situation reminded me of the scene from Jaws of all the boats in Amity harbor preparing to go after the shark, only in our case it was nearly dark.  The operators are so confident that the diver or snorkeler will see a manta that many offer a guarantee that if a manta is not seen, the customer can get a free manta dive.  The number of boats and people in the water are testament to the popularity of the dives.

We entered the water as a group and saw to the mooring line with which we would make our descent to the bottom.  Not only does this strategy keep the divers together as a group, the line provides a reference to a diver who may otherwise become disoriented during descent.  Once on the bottom, we were taken to our designated area in 33 feet of water.  Our purposely slightly negative weighing kept us firmly on the bottom during the dive which went on for 45 minutes.  The mantas would come “flying” in consuming the plankton illuminated by the lights and then ascend toward the surface to continue feeding on the plankton illuminated by the lights on the surface.  The mantas moved in a surface-to-bottom loop, moving from one cluster of lights to the other.  

At one point, the 14 mantas seemed to be in a scrum as they completed each loop.  Everywhere were mantas.  Yet they managed to avoid colliding with each other and the divers and snorkelers, getting so close as to allow a diver to reach out and touch the critter, although we had been admonished to keep our hands to ourselves.  The manta body has a mucus veneer which protects the manta.  Touching the manta could remove this mucous to the possible detriment of the animal.  One has to kill the urge reach out at times as the mantas approached within what seems like inches as they pull up from the bottom of their loop, buzzing the diver.

Say aaaahhh

The experience can be summed up in one word—“fabulous” or an emphatic "whooaa.".  The three-quarter of an hour dive passed quickly.  Given the tunnel vision caused by the mask and the limited aura of illumination from the lights mantas seemed to be everywhere and come out of nowhere doing precision approaches and turn on a dime evasions as they passed.