Day 17 - July 13th

Ah what a day. It started almost as a bummer, with nothing to do in the morning (except laundry). However fortune smiled on us when Martina found out that Big Island only had three divers for a two tank that night and she worked it so that all the interns could go on the boat. So Ryan, Jake, Richard, Heather and I headed off around 3pm for a night that I will remember forever!

The two tank was in Garden Eel Cove, where the night time Manta dive is (the one I've been on twice before) It was amazing to see this cove during the day. The reef surrounding the cove is (I think) the best that I've dove here so far. Right off the bat we saw manta glide above us (the first one I've seen in the daytime). The cephalic fins were rolled up meaning that it was not feeding and it was moving fairly quickly, making it hard to take several pictures. The mantas were nick-named "Devil Ray" back in the day because fisherman would see them swimming with thier fins rolled up and they looked like devils.

The visibility in the cove was amazing and there were a ton of fish and marine life around. We saw alot of eels (though we didn't get down to the garden eels) including a yellow margin moray and a white mouthed moray that were right across from each other. The dive continued and I saw some other cool life, like the rough spined urchin (nick-named "Sputnik")

The urchins are nice for photographing because they don't move around on you! This dive was supposed to be the make-up for the navigation dive for me and Richard, but he didn't have a compass with him so we didn't do it. The dive was also my fish ID dive, which I didn't know in advance, so it was like a pop quiz. The last part of the dive I followed closely to Ryan and she would point out a fish or other creature and I wrote its name down on the slate. I did pretty well only not knowing two of the fish she pointed out (so I passed). Check off one more step towards my certification. :o)

After this dive we had a little over an hour to wait before the next dive while we off-gassed enough nitrogen to make it safe, and to wait for the sun to set and it to get completely dark so the Mantas could arrive. While we waited we ate dinner, delicious sushi that we picked up before getting on the boat. After the sun set and as we were getting ready Mantas started to show up in the boat lights, which was a good sign that it was going to be a good night. We had four Mantas just swimming around by the boat before we even got in the water. (note that the last times i dove this the most we saw was two during the whole night) We got in the water and swam over to dive site. We arrived to a feeding FRENZY. There were Manta Rays swimming everywhich way, almost running into each other at times. It was insane. They would graze over my head with barely an inch to spare, and several bumped me on the head and arm and one ran across my hand during the night. I found out after the dive that there were SEVENTEEN total mantas there that night. Amazingly enough Ryan knows basically all 106 mantas that live along the coast and can easily identify them by their spot patterns, the one in the picture is Alexander.

All together there were: Alexander, Doug, Timbuktu, Knight, Big Bertha (who is pregnant and the largest one they know of at 16ft), Lefty, Rebekah, Isabel, Wyland, Who Ray, X-Ray, Cousteau, Curly, Sugar Ray, Kaulani, Bob-n-Ray and Miki. The rays are hard to take pictures of at night because you need a flash but typically all the flash does is illuminate the plankton so you get alot of mucky pictures. My goal was to get a cool closeup shot of the gills because they look really neat, and I succeeded! It was such an insane amazing night.