belated Hawaii post: manta pics

[jinian]

Swimming with manta rays is totally amazing. The story is that years ago a hotel out on a point near Kona had so many lights that it caused vast nocturnal plankton congregations, and manta rays, not being completely stupid, congregated also, to enjoy the plankton buffet. The hotel went under, but boats had started taking tourists out, and brought their own lights. There's a hotel again, boats still go, the tradition is carried forward. (More specific story.) The tour we took was literally a five-minute boat ride from the site, and they were pretty great. (Videographer's web site.)

Socially this was a slightly awkward outing. I had talked it up a lot, but our whole group did not go, which is to say that the ones paying for the trip did not go. I felt a little weird about it, especially since I was not completely gracious about not getting to dive rather than snorkel. But, hey, I can only be perfect some of the time, right? I did spearhead our getting a DVD of our swim and sending it to our benefactors, so I felt okay with it overall.

I have fewer photos than I wanted and attempted, because the underwater camera was very odd and started malfunctioning during the swim. Sheesh. Mostly I just gawked. Because, dude, manta rays.




An eye is visible at the obtuse angle on the left, and the two cephalic lobes frame the gaping maw. The white ribbing is the inside of its gullet! They swim with mouths open, then filter out the tasty bits using their gill slits. Lots of fish were around, too, and I actually saw a manta get one in its mouth by accident. It spat it out.



Here's the completely non-perilous back end of a manta. They are not stingrays and have no way to hurt anyone. (The tour guide was very clear about that, which made me wonder how many people got all the way out on the boat in a wet suit and then started worrying about Steve Irwin.)



They all had individual freckles and markings on top and bottom, though the color scheme was mostly dark above and light below. I guess they're still selected on the basis of being hard to see for predators, though it's hard to imagine eating a whole one. The mantas we saw (four of them) were between 6 feet across and 10-12 feet across, depending on who did the estimating, and those are pretty average sizes. Apparently they are born at 4 feet across! (and many other fine facts)


In conclusion: Do this if you get the chance! I had wanted to see mantas since I was a little kid, and they exceeded even my high hopes. I want to do it again.

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Gullet!

[submarine-bells.livejournal.com]

Hooray for manta awesomeness! Thanks for posting the pics. :-)

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, so nifty! :D

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

EEEE mantas! So adorable!

I've swum with stingrays before, actually, and the difficult thing with them is actually that they are too cuddly. They twine all round you and you're like, um, this is very friendly of you but I'll just be over here? Away from your tail? No, I mean way away from your tail DOWN BOY SIT STAY ARGH. Never actually been stung but that is because I have really mastered backing up politely.

Are mantas cuddly?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

SQUEEE!

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Sadly, they are not. One of the things we surface folk had to do was keep our legs as far up as possible, because the mantas are disturbed if they accidentally hit you, and then they fly away. The same goes for touching them on purpose. They pretty much ignored everything but the lights, but they followed the beams amazingly intently, so the stage manager was able to direct them to come very close to us for viewing. Wim says one brushed him with a wing, but I was not so lucky.