On Wednesday we joined the Kona Honu dive boat again for the much anticipated manta night dive. The night dive was preceded by an afternoon dive, meant in part to introduce us by daylight to the manta feeding area – an underwater lava shelf where we would descend a second time after dark.
However the afternoon dive turned out to be very special as well as we explored Garden Eels Cove, so named for a patch of bottom in about 60 feet of water where a colony of garden eels sprout out of the sand like so many asparagus. The eels are about as big around as a finger and maybe 12-18 inches in length. They point their bodies up vertically from the bottom, feeding on plankton in the water, but they are very shy and sensitive and as you approach them they suck back down into the sand and disappear. I’ve never seen them in person underwater. Mike thought he had until I reminded him they had been featured on an episode of the Discovery Channel.
The coral was profuse and pristine and the scenery was inspiring. I’ve never seen so many squirrel fish in my life, hanging suspended in the water on the reef wall’s perimeter. Eventually we were joined by two or three mantas cruising overhead (black and white photos). However it was all just a preface to the real excitement of the evening – the night manta dive.
Approximately four commercial dive boats were in the cove for the evening’s entertainment. They cooperate by deploying underwater lights on the bottom and color-coding their clients’ tanks with glowing Cyalume lightsticks to help keep track of us. All scuba divers descend to form a circle on the sandy bottom, about 35 feet deep, while snorkelers float on the surface holding onto giant floating hula hoops. Everyone is furnished with an underwater torch. The divers point their lights straight up while the snorkelers aim theirs straight down. The resultant column of light in the water attracts plankton, and in turn the plankton attracts the manta rays for an easy evening feast.
It took only moments before the water was swirling with mantas, swooping and soaring gracefully only inches over our heads. The dive guides counted 19 mantas that night (more on that later) and we enjoyed the spectacle for some 40 minutes before being recalled to the boats. My rented underwater camera was totally inadequate to capture crisp sharp shots under these conditions, but the outrageously artsy images that resulted accurately portray the other-worldly atmosphere of the experience. One of the pro divers operated an enormous professional hi-def video camera setup, and he videotaped the entire dive with shots of each of us individually amidst the rays. The quality of his video is superb and I can’t wait to view the DVD that will be waiting for us in the mail when we get back to Tucson.
Back to counting mantas – it would seem to be an impossible task but it turns out that individual mantas can be identified by the dark markings on their white underbellies – as distinctive to each manta as a fingerprint. This is also true of humpback whale tails. The dive guides know each ray by name and whenever they recognize one by its markings they record it on their underwater slates. After the dive the guides put their heads (and slates) together and determine the evening count. There are some 116 individually identified mantas on the Kona Coast and if you’d like to see their names and markings check out the Manta Pacific website. Giant Manta Rays can attain a wingspan of 20-25 feet and weigh in at up to 3,000 pounds, so the 19 mantas in the water with us represented potentially some 50,000 pounds soaring over our heads as gracefully as butterflies.
Adrenalin from the dive kept us warm underwater but when it was all over and the boat delivered us back to the marina around 9 p.m. we were definitely wet and chilled. My final inspiration for the evening was to order in room service at the hotel where we took long warm showers and then enjoyed hot soup and a bottle of wine on our lanai, romantically surrounded by all our dive gear rinsed in the bathtub and hung over the balcony rail to drip-dry.