Around The Campfire with the Manta Rays

Last night we had the most incredible experience night-diving with manta rays. It was seriously one of the most incredible wildlife experiences in my life. We were all a little nervous before the dive. The girls and Jeff have been a little congested so they were nervous about equalizing. Plus we are all pretty inexperienced divers and haven't been in a long time. Jeff and I went diving while we were in Mexico in March but the kids haven't been since going in Egypt in December 2018!

After heading out to the dive site on the boat, the crew taught us about manta rays, briefed us on the equipment and dive, and then we put on our wetsuits and got ready to go! The sun was had set and we had already seen several mantas from the boat so we were hopeful we'd see a good show underwater! I was the first one in. I have to admit I had a few seconds of nerves as I was walking to the edge of the swim step. We had watched a bunch of refresher videos online before coming so I tried to remember everything as I took one big step off the boat. Once I was in the water, I felt calm and fine. We could already see 3 or 4 huge manta rays swimming near us. We all stayed together as our group of 6, plus our guide. (Man we miss Calvin!!! He would have LOVED this)! We turned on our flashlights and slowly descended together. Thankfully everyone was able to equalize just fine. Once we were about 6' from the bottom, we headed over to the area they call "the campfire." It's an area about 40 feet down, off the reef, in the sand, where they have piled up a bunch of rocks in a circle like a fire pit and each dive company puts a few large, very bright dive lights in the middle of the fire pit pointing upwards to attract the plankton. Then all of the divers sit around the campfire and shine their flashlights straight up to attract more plankton and most nights the mantas come. Last night was one of the best! We had at least 10 HUGE mantas come in to feed on the plankton. They were absolutely enormous! There were several large females with wingspans over 14' and several males with wingspans around 10'-12'. Each manta ray has distinct markings on their belly so they know which ones they are and have named them like "Big Bertha," "Vicky," "Custeau," and "Stevie Ray."  

We were all positioned next to each other around the campfire, seated on the ground to watch the "show." The mantas were already coming in, doing their barrel rolls to eat the plankton. We had to be careful not to touch any as we got settled. I could not believe how close they get! They swim up and down in these circular barrel rolls, like an underwater summersault, to gather the plankton and they skim right next to your flashlight next to your head! One even touched me! Its wing rubbed against my hand that was holding the flashlight next to my ear. The dive guidelines are very clear and strict: DO NOT TOUCH THE MANTA RAYS! If you do, you go straight back to the boat. It can damage their skin and leave them susceptible to infections because it can stip away their protective film. But if you don't move and they rub against you, that's on them! I couldn't believe how close they got each time. Many times they swam directly at you so you could see deep into their giant mouth and then they would skim the top of your head and continue their barrel roll upwards. There were so many manta rays that it was nearly continuous that one was swimming right next to you. 

The experience was absolutely incredible! For 45 minutes we sat on the ocean floor and watched these beautiful, magnificent, gigantic creatures glide and twist and spin and flip as they fed on the swarms of plankton gathering under all of the lights. There were schools of fish swimming circling around the campfire and bubbles from the divers floating up in the light. It felt like one big choreographed show! It brought us to tears and we felt like praying and thanking God for these incredible creatures, for this incredible earth, and for the opportunity to witness this. It was awe-inspiring and humbling. We felt so grateful we could be a part of it! 

It was so fun after the dive to just talk a mile a minute to each other about how we felt, what we saw, what we experienced because when we were down there we couldn't talk at all. That is something unique and cool about diving, you are really alone with your thoughts. It feels meditative and peaceful. But it was also hard to be experiencing this amazing thing and not be able to shout and cheer and smile at each other (because if you move your face too much, water gets in your mask haha).