VIDEO: Warm water & Manta Rays in Kona

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sarita75

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As a coldwater diver, it is always nice to get away for a little while to check out what inhabits warmer water. Mark and I headed to Kona (Hawaii) at the end of October 2009. The most phenomenal dive was our night dive with the Manta Rays. Video: Hawaii Diving

Enjoy!
 
Sarah, this is some awesome footage! Last time I was on the big island, I did the manta ray dive too, but we struck out - we had amazing visibility, which means no plankton, and hence no mantas :p

I did have trouble seeing the vid until I upgraded my version of Quicktime and rebooted.
 
Ohhhh, I am so sorry that you struck out on that night. I have heard that full moons are a bad time to go as well, as the plankton gets more uniformly dispersed, resulting in less mantas.

As well, sorry about the problems seeing the video. Here's another link: \
YouTube - Manta Rays (Short)
 
Great video Sarah. Thanks for posting.

One of my earliest dives was with the mantas at Kona. Your video brought back many memories.

Did you also get to see the eel forest before your manta dive? If I recall correctly, they come out only during twilight. It's like a field of eels sticking up a foot or more out of the sand. On my manta dive we had moored near the airport; went to see the eels for our first dive and then hung out with the mantas on our second.
 
Yeah, that site is called Garden Eel Cove, named for all the garden eels that poke up through the sand flats that extend seaward from the inshore rocky reef. We did a twilight dive there during my visit, just a couple of weeks after Sarah was there. The terrain there is interestingly barren, probably from all the years of divers planted to and kicking around on the bottom. The campfire area really looks just like any campfire pit and surrounding, sooty, sandy expanse.

The night I was there, Nov 8, we were treated to 11 mantas, at least two of which I immediately recognized in Sarah's video. I'd got the names of a few of them, but forgot them by the time we'd got back to the dock. It's astonishing the way they fly right at your head and then veer upward at the last second. I got my head grazed by a few of them. I was glad I'd brought my own primary light, which was way brighter than the ones they handed out on the boat.
 
I am jealous. No warm water diving for me this year or vacation for that matter. Thanks for sharing the video.
 
Nice video, thanks for sharing. I did this dive back in May and found it to be quite surreal. In addition to the giant Manta swooshing by and doing fantastic loopty-loops there are also all the lights down there, which made it seem other worldly.

-Erik
 
You and Kenn must have gone to the same soundtrack picking school! That or you're just natural pro's :wink:.
 
Great video Sarah. Thanks for posting.

One of my earliest dives was with the mantas at Kona. Your video brought back many memories.

Did you also get to see the eel forest before your manta dive? If I recall correctly, they come out only during twilight. It's like a field of eels sticking up a foot or more out of the sand. On my manta dive we had moored near the airport; went to see the eels for our first dive and then hung out with the mantas on our second.

I am headed to Kona for Christmas. Is the manta/eel combo common or do I need to book with a specific operator?
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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