Manta Rays!

Before we came to Kona, a good friend of ours told us that we HAD to do the night time Manta Ray dive. Basically, you hire a boat to take you 25 miles from the harbor, where you join several other boats doing the same thing. About half the people there are snorkelers and half are divers. The divers suit up in their SCUBA gear and dive to the sea floor 45 feet below with their giant lights. The snorkelers then arrange themselves in giant rings on the top, shining lights downward. All this light attracts plankton, which is what the mantas feed on. And by now, they know that the light means food, so it doesn't take them long to arrive. Over the years, the people who keep track of these things have catalogued 196 different manta rays in the area (they each have distinct spots and streaks on their belly). On any given night five or six show up for the dive. But now it's mating season, and for about the past month, they've been getting between 15 and 30 per night.

First off, when most people think manta ray, they think sting ray. They're not the same thing. Although the mantas have a long pointy tail, it's not dangerous. Secondly, sting rays (at least in my mind) are not nearly as giganto-huge as the manta rays I saw last night. Manta wingspan is anywhere from 10-20 feet, and when they're swimming right next to you, it seems way bigger. However, they don't have teeth, and though they could fit several humans in their mouth, they aren't interested in people (at least as food). They're not scared of them either. So when mantas see the lights they come gliding under you, gracefully flapping their wings, and then backflip up, scooping in all the plankton close to the lights, showing you their belly (and wide mouth) as they fly by. Just take a look at the video below and you'll see what I mean. And no, I'm not zooming in. These things were less than an inch from me.

This first video was taken very shortly after we entered the water and before we positioned ourselves above the SCUBA divers, which turned out to be fortuitous since their lights didn't lend themselves to good video.

And this video gives you a sense of the melee that ensues once all the lights are in place. Fish join the party, and then the bubbles start floating up, and it gets very busy. Then there are those 20-foot wide creatures circling all around you. I had to remind myself to keep breathing.

It's nearly impossible to get good pictures in the dark conditions, but these shots give you a sense for the mantas sweeping by (above) and then starting their upward flip with mouth open (below). Try staring that in the face and not flinching at least a little.