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Manta Ray Night Snorkel

It was fortunate that I did not have to title this story "Big Island, Big Loss: How Theresa was lost at Sea!" Okay, I am being a little bit of melodramatic. However, I was glad that I came home with Theresa. We originally were going to go with Rainbow Divers. Due to Sept-11, not many tourists were around. The boat were only going to have us and two divers. However, that day one of the divers broke his feet, so we were placed on another dive boat. Theresa was kind of questioning about the whole thing. Strike one. She was dismayed also to see a whole boat of divers rather than snorkelers. Strike two. When we finally arrived at our location and saw the somewhat choppy waves, even I thought strike three.

All the divers jumped in and started to wait for the manta rays. Theresa and I waited for more than 15 minutes before one manta ray showed up. Theresa told me to go ahead and tried out the water. I jumped in and quickly found that one manta ray was swimming below. I went back to the boat and told Theresa that it was perfectly safe. Theresa actually believed me! What a mistake!

Well, we got into the water. I was kind of worried because every time I looked up Theresa had her head up above the water and seemed to be struggling. After a minute of this, we decided to swim back together. It's better be safe than to be sorry. So Theresa did get to do a minute of snorkel, but she did not get to see the manta ray due to the darkness and the choppiness of the ocean. She did have a nice chat with the boat captain though.

I did go back and enjoyed "lefty" the manta ray's show below. It had a wing span of close to 14 feet. Even though my guidebook and many web storied proclaimed that the manta ray night snorkel to be an unforgettable experience, I frankly don't think so because from the ocean surface the manta ray was swimming far below us. Snorkelers don't get quite the show as the divers see the manta rays gliding right above and around their heads. Nevertheless, Theresa and I will always remember this snorkel trip since I almost lost Theresa to the sea :-)

When this picture was taken, Theresa was still happy with me--prior to her night snorkeling experience. :-)

We left the Honokohau Harbor before sunset.

A lot of sport fishing boats were moored in this harbor.

The divers had lots of equipment.

Theresa and I were engrossed by the instructions given to the divers. This was a relatively shallow, easy, and short dive for the divers.

We were treated to another marvelous Kona Sunset.

One of the dive master was giving detailed instructions.

The blueness of the water is due to the bright lights placed 30 feet underwater. The light attracted the photo planktons, which then attracted manta rays.
Where are the pictures of the manta rays? I took more than 20 photos, and none of them turned out due to the darkness! How disappointing.
Even worse, the moment I got back into the boat I felt sea sickness. I did not get better for more than one hour until after I got back to land.

Hi Theresa, this is a picture of Manta Ray since you did not see one.

[from http://www.fritzles.de/gross_e.htm ]

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