We had been told to remove our snorkels when we scuba dove to meet the manta rays. You barely need a snorkel anyway when you’re in scuba mode, and it would make it safer for all if we didn’t have a snorkel sticking up when the giant creatures with their huge wingspan swooped in just inches from our heads. We were told not to reach out to touch the manta. But if the manta chose to brush into us, that was its choice and therefore okay. We all nodded and pondered what was in store for us down in the darkness below.
I was with my son Wesley on a big chartered dive boat as the sun was setting off the coast of Kona in Hawaii. With this night dive, we would complete the last of five adventure dives that would earn us an “advanced open water” rating which is one step beyond the usual scuba certification. That advanced diver card would be our ticket to all sorts of interesting dives such as shipwrecks!
Our goal tonight was to complete a night dive with our instructor and perform a navigation exercise using a wrist-mounted compass and a dive light. To add extra interest, our instructor Kevin had arranged for our night dive to occur at “Manta Heaven” offshore at Kona, where dozens of divers and snorkelers gather each night after sunset to view the manta. These giant creatures like to gather there because all those dive lights concentrated in one area attract plankton and the manta rays love swimming through such food-rich water with their big mouths agape. Everybody wins (except the plankton, I suppose.)
By the time Wesley and I had geared up and stepped off the back of our big dive boat, the sun was long gone and the dark ocean contained glowing spots down deep where divers from other boats had already descended. We hadn’t even started toward the bottom yet and it was surreal. On the surface, snorkelers were clustered around special surfboards that were really just floating racks of dive lights pointed down.
The six of us assembled together in the water beside the boat, and with a hand signal, dropped beneath the surface for a slow descent down the boat’s mooring line to the reef, forty feet below, our air bubbles rumbling past our ears. We joined a group of about two dozen scuba divers kneeling in the dark. Such an unlikely gathering of strangers in an unlikely place! All of us charged with anticipation, silent except for the Darth Vader sound of our breathing. Dive lights shown upwards through the myriad of scuba bubbles wriggling ever upward in fractured plumes that sparkled silver. Everyone’s scuba tank had either red, green or yellow glow sticks tied on near the valve (so that a group could tell its members apart from the others.) It was all like a Vegas style light show, except that it was underwater and we were all participants.
Then, something changed in the group’s demeanor and I looked up and back. An eight foot wide manta ray dove down towards us in a tight turn. It then swooped upwards and turned back again for more. This big creature proceeded to do loop after loop, rippling its big wings just right to perform such vigorous acrobatics flawlessly, occasionally straightening out its path to cruise by, barely above the heads of the huddled scuba divers.
When it passed above me, I was just inches from its huge flat underside with its gray Dalmatian spots glaring brightly just above my dive light. Everyone was good about not reaching out to touch the manta. At one point the side of my head experienced a gentle clunk with the edge of the creature’s big wing. Cool. I saw that Wesley also had an incidental head rub by the Manta. I knew he would dig that.
After some minutes of this, instructor Kevin, ever mindful of our air supply, beckoned us away to join him for the required compass exercise. I followed his two red glow sticks through the dark to the concrete base of the mooring line. He motioned for me to start the big square route we had agreed upon earlier, so I swam fifty feet out (as counted by 22 swim-kicks, in my case) while dutifully keeping my wrist compass squarely fixed in front of my mask, turned 90 degrees (as determined by my compass face) swam another fifty feet and did this two more times. After this last, I knelt in the sand and looked up to see that I had completed the square and was within a mere ten feet of the mooring line. Nailed it! I was so pleased with my success that I just had to do something, so I lifted my head and arms upward towards the mooring line in a sort of combination of “touchdown” and “amazing grace.” It felt like I was proclaiming this moment all who have ever been triumphant.
Mission accomplished. We then used the last of our downtime to relax and explore the coral in the dark using our dive lights to bring out the intense reds and yellows of the reef. Kevin made another request to check our air supplies. I shined my light onto my left hand and flashed five fingers followed by two fingers. 700 PSI meant it was time to head up.
Back on the boat we sat on wood benches and peeled off our wetsuits. We’d get our fancy advanced diver cards in a few weeks. After that the future was wide open. Most excellent.
Steve McKee is a Benicia architect.
He can be reached on the web at: www.smckee.com or at (707) 746-6788
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