Night Manta Ray Dives on Kona?

[TSandM]

We did the dive with Big Island Divers, and we went to the Sheraton, along with about ten other boats. Unfortunately, the night we went, there wasn't much plankton and we did not see any mantas -- but that's absolutely beyond the control of the dive op. It was a fairly nice night dive, however, once they gave up and decided just to do a leisurely tour getting back to the boat.

 

[BSOD]

Went with Jack's Diving Locker in Dec, both at Garden Eel Cove (near the airport) and the Sheraton. Got skunked at GEC - which from talking to others is the "usual" spot. Saw only one (which did stay around and put on a good show for quite a while) at the Sheraton a day or two later.

Talking with others, they'll basically choose the site where they think they'll have the best luck (i.e. had better sightings recently). That said, one of the guides mentioned he rarely goes to the Sheraton site FWIW. It was a bit surge-y there, and the bottom was a bit less open so you had to pay more attention when choosing where to sit/kneel/lie down.

 

[slingshot]

I think Big Island Divers posts their manta count from the night before on their website. It can give you some idea of things are "happening" at Garden Eel cove. I think the pacific manta foundation used to have a list of the night before's manta's by name, but I don't recall seeing this lately.

 

[spoolin01]

You made a good choice with Big Island Divers. I've done a number of dives with them and thought they were consistently the best of the (few) boat dive ops I've tried in Hawaii (none other in Kona) and the Keys. I've been on their Manta dive 4 times and only got skunked the first time. In December, they took us down to the Sheraton for the first time, since there hadn't been much action at the closer Garden Eel Cove for a few days. There were two there, whereas those who stayed at GEC saw none, we heard.

If you can, I highly recommend taking the two tank Manta dive, where you get a twilight dive as well. If the mantas are around at GEC, you'll usually see one or two on the twilight dive as well, and the fish seem to be less twitchy right at twilight.

I'll add a couple of recommendations - carry extra lead for the manta dive. You want to be able to sit or kneel on the bottom and if there's any surge, the extra weight helps. I add about 10 lbs to the usual 18. Wear more wetsuit than normal, it's 45-60' of inactivity - hyperventilation notwithstanding! BID has hoods you can wear, and they make a difference. Shine your light out away from the 'campfire' periodically, you may see hunting jacks, eels, reef sharks, who knows...

 

[DivingPanda]

Did Garden Eel cove twice in August and there were 25-30 Mantas first night and 8 second night.

We did a two dive pkg, and saw Mantas above Garden Eel in the afternoon, then 18-20 that night.

Well now I feel positively cheated! :cool2:

 

[scuba_drum]

should i start another thread with my trip report or just put it into this thread?

 

[Teamcasa]

should i start another thread with my trip report or just put it into this thread?

It's up to you. But it's always nice to see what, if any the original responses did to help you.

 

[scuba_drum]

Alright, here goes... As I stated earlier, we booked this with Big Island Divers. What a class act this shop is. I *highly* recommend them. We did the 2 tank manta dive, the first dive was just before sunset. We saw whales very close on the way out, saw some dolphins spinning out of the water - both were very cool. We get to see dolphins a lot over here on Oahu, and we have been hearing the whales sing when we dive, but it is never anything less than spectacular to see either. The first dive was nice, the corals were much better than some places off Oahu. We had 2 mantas come cruising by towards the end of the dive. I was completely OK with not seeing any on the second dive after seeing 2 on the first dive, ha! But, our luck was even better. As the sun started to go down, several other boats came around. Our first thoughts were "crap, too many divers around", but in the end this was a good thing. Before it got totally dark, the lights they had set out for us began attracting mantas. They dropped a couple of lights below the boat and we had about 5 of them doing summersaults under/beside our boat. OMG, this was about to make us all scream! We got into the water and there were so many swimming around us, I could not count how many there were. There was a lady who videocams the dives for money, and she counted 19 she told us later. She recognizes them from their markings, they are obviously all marked uniquely different. You could have told me there were 50 and I would have believed it. Now, I've done quite a bit of diving, in many different places. I would still have to say that this was one of the coolest dives I've ever done. If you can make this happen, take my word for it - do it! I'm usually not into the touristy kind of thing, but again, do this dive! Oh yeah, another plug for Big Island Divers - they gave us sandwiches and had a cooler full of sodas and water. After the night manta dive, we were all a bit chilled. I don't usually get cold but only brought my shortie wetsuit over and was chilled. The guys on the boat broke out some thermos's of hot chocolate which just topped the night off. I highly recommend them. Ask for Luke or Mikey (I guess there are 3 or 4 Mike's there, they all have their own designation). I'm trying to remember the boat captains name, but they were all awesome. The boat was clean, had a really warm shower off the back, all were top notch. If anyone wants to see some video, send me a PM and we can work it out, at least until I can figure out how to post video here....

 

[DivingPanda]

Great report - glad you had a good time!

 

[scubacoz22]

How about the manta dive at the Hilton hotel?