![]() So when I was back home, I once again furiously googled where to dive with manta rays and then I organised a trip to the Komodo Islands in Indonesia for March and as a backup Pulau Sipadan in Malay Borneo for April…Both well known Manta sighting locations in South East Asia with year round presence. This convinced me finally to wage an all out assault to achieve my dream – My new years resolution for 2016 was set. Check out this post on the Best Dive Sites in the World…That I’ve Been To! 5m+ across and gorgeous, but the water was too rough and dangerous to get in with them.Īdd the Galapagos to any list of where to dive with manta rays! I had my first taste, but my dream was unfulfilled – but I still refused to cheat and resort to a artificial Manta Ray night dive in Kona. We got closer but they were below the surface and we could only spot from a distance rollin – They were huge. There were Manta here, feeding off the upwelling of nutrient filled cold water in this deep ocean. Off Isabella Island later we were in a boat in rough waters and I spotted this weird shape rolling around in the water, doing backflips …Could it be? I mean honestly…When you have turtles out the wazoo, and they love a good selfie how can you be disappointed! My heart dropped as I thought I had missed it, but it turns out (as I have found over the years) that most people cannot tell the difference between a eagle ray and a manta ray, or a stingray for that matter! Our second dive yielded a huge school of hammerheads so was hard to be disappointed with yet again – no manta. The dive ended and we came up and the guys who had been snorkelling were screaming about a manta. ![]() ![]() I was so intent that I almost missed the streamlined sea-lion that came barreling towards me – narrowly missing me on his search for food! It was an incredible dive and I forced myself to look away from the blue, trusting if they were there I would see them. On my trip to the Galapagos in November ’15 I was able to fit in two dives off Kicker Rock and again I was so, so excited …Could this be the chance?! Our first dive went straight down through a school of Eagle Rays and I was breathlessly excited, staring out intently into that deep blue … looking, waiting. After all I had never seen them my whole life on the water in NZ. I was beginning to realise how elusive these crafty Manta’s were – but no worries, they would be worth it, I told myself.A friend swears he has seen them breaching in New Zealand while out fishing but a dive in the Poor Knights off NZ’s coast in ’14 reached the expected ‘no sightings’ result…. Since then the hunt has been on, I thought I was so close on a week long Wicked liveaboard in the Sicilian Islands off Thailand but no luck – I did manage to see an amazing Whale Shark though and swim in a huge school of barracuda which inspired me more but my Manta provided elusive even as we dove off manta point with a song!Ĭredit goes to our Thai dive master Christa: It’s to the tune “I need a hero” by Tina Turner and it goes like this: They are present in Hawaii and can easily be seen on a Manta Ray Night Dive in Kona but are largely artificially lured with lights for tourists at night which is not what I want ( and is bad for both people and the mantas!). I ended up doing my course on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii which was actually really incredible as my first dive had a baby turtle, but I never saw my majestic blue friends. Unfortunately timing and budget didn’t work out but I have since be in ’15 but missed the beginning of Manta season by 3 days! When I originally set out to get my dive license back in ’13 it was because I was inspired by these gorgeous creatures – even intended to learn in Manta Island Resort in Fiji’s Yasawa Islands.
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