![]() ![]() After diving in more than 10 countries I can say Kona Diving Company is one of the best operators I’ve ever had the pleasure of diving with. As we were forking over more than $166 per person (including all gear rental, taxes, and fees), I turned to my trusty Scubaboard, the web’s biggest diving forum, for a recommendation. If you are lucky enough to come experience this yourself, I can’t sing the praises of Kona Diving Company more highly. While I admit I’m a fairly easily impressed diver, this was without a doubt one of the best dives of my life. I was so grateful for a guilt-free animal encounter. I marvel that these were wild animals, free to come and go as they please, and felt grateful that they chose to spent time with us. As I watching the show these acrobats of the sea put on for us, I felt humbled by nature and by the power of the ocean. I will remember this hour underwater for the rest of my life. It’s a good thing I had had time to get comfortable though, as when the other diver’s left so did their lights and it was truly pitch black save for the beam of our own torches. Still, when the other dive groups started to get low on air and retreat back to their boats, I was grateful for our time alone with the mantas. They feed by straining the plankton through their mouths and out of their gills as they swim, often by performing underwater back flips and somersaults. These pacific manta rays feed on plankton, which are attracted to the divers’ and snorkelers’ bright lights. While the amount of people you share this experience with might seem like a burden, it’s actually necessary to attract the great creatures. That way everyone can stick with their group - it would definitely prove helpful with the madness below. ![]() ![]() Each company has a different color of glow stick assigned to them, which is attached to the back of each diver’s tank and each snorkeler’s mask. We saw more than twenty individual mantas that night, and I’m positive I went to second base with at least four of them.īecause there are so many people that want to experience the mantas, and just one site to see them, all the dive companies in Kona work together. Though it is strictly forbidden to touch the manta rays, you can’t stop them from touching you. I love the photo below right for the sense of scale that it gives. These creatures are truly magnificent - their wingspan can reach up to 20 feet. As when I first laid eyes on a whale shark, I felt tears springing in my mask. I couldn’t help but let out a squeal myself as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw the elegant lines of the mantas swooping and swimming in the distance. Once our group was all at the surface, we descended together and swam towards the large circle the other dive schools had formed. Finally it was our turn to enter the water and because I hate jumping into dark water and waiting for my dive buddy, Heather indulged me by going in first. Even knowing that, it was hard to wait when muffled squeals came trumpeting out of the other group’s snorkels. Kona Diving Company makes a point to enter the water last out of all the dive schools, so that they can also exit last, and have some alone time with the mantas. We were to be very, very lucky that night. In the hilarious and puppet-assisted briefing, our dive guides Jordan and David told us that sometimes there are twenty rays, sometimes there are five, sometimes –though rare - there are none at all. ![]() Because while this very dive site is famous as the world’s most reliable place to see manta rays, they are still wild animals without too much care for how far you traveled or how much you paid to see them. ![]()
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