I am a biology student who likes to get out on adventures into the natural world and photograph biodiversity. This is a photography adventure blog. I tend to focus on birds, but am into macro photography, as well as underwater photography.
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The Reef Manta Ray (Manta alfredi) is a beautiful creature and perhaps the best place to see them is off of Hawaii.
When I was certified as a diver there was one creature I could not wait to see when underwater; a Manta Ray. They are graceful, and almost alien with there odd shape and cephalic fins, which are positioned on the side of the mouths and help direct plankton-rich water into their cavernous mouth.
My, what big gills you have! This is a closeup of Manta Ray gills, these are what these rays use strain out zooplankton from seawater.
Manta rays have a worldwide distribution but one of the most well known places to get in the water with them is along the rugged volcanic costs of Hawaii’s Big Island. Here you can do a night dive with the Rays and watch their acrobatic feeding. I went diving with Jack's Diving Locker, one of the larger dive shops in Kailua-Kona. They offer a day/night combo dive at Garden Eel Cove located just south of the Kona International Airport. I had been looking forward to this dive for over a year at this point. I had purchased a Sealife camera to allow me to begin my foray into underwater photography, and I had bought a very expensive wide-angle lens attachment which gave me a 16mm focal length, which is really the only way to photograph these animals, and something that I definitely took away from my research; though a 16mm is probably the bare minimum to even try to photograph them, the best shots online are often around 9mm. We took off from the harbor and raced across the waves. When we arrived, only one other vessel was bobbing the ocean. Quickly we got ready and took the dive into the blue waters. It was a whole new world.
A group of Pearly Squirrelfish in a crevice.
Used to the murky inland waters of Utah, the pool like clarity allowing me to see the bottom around 40 feet below, was unfamiliar and breathtaking. I will definitely remember my first dip below the waves. The dive guide took us through the area we would see the Manta, a barren rocky area called the campfire. A few reef fish swam among the perfectly round rocks. We then began to swim to deeper water and down the reef. At around 80 feet the sloping reef reaches a featureless sandy plain stretching into the blue. Giant Actinopyga obesa sea cucumbers and Yellowstripe Goatfish rested on the bottom. This is where the colony of garden eels that give the site its name reside. These specialized fish remain mostly in their burrows while they snatch prey from the surrounding water, ducking down as divers approach. From there we began our assent. Many crevices and caves in the coral held fish, in particular groups of Pearly Soldierfish, Hawaiian Dascyllus, and Ornate Butterflyfish. I began to run low on air and headed to the surface.
A school of Yellowstripe Goatfish prepare for night
In the hour or so I had been submerged the Sunlight had really begun to fade; I had heard the sun set fast in the tropics. The volcanic smog from the active volcano also obscured the light, and the sun was a faded red sphere in the sky. A few more boats had also anchored in the bay. As we enjoyed dinner, even more boats began to arrive, our guides mentioned that there had been some talk of limiting boats, because it was getting way too crowded out here. We had a quick dive briefing on the bow at which time the first manta appeared alongside a nearby boat. We quickly wrapped up and headed into the dark waters. Below a massive gliding shape soared under my fins. Following our guide and the two red lights attached to his tank we arrived on the edge of the campfire, what in the light had been a pretty boring and barren location, was transformed. Sever lights along the bottom sent beams upward, while lights attached to floating boards that snorkelers held onto sent beams down. It looked like some sort of cirque du soleil show or outer space. Then the rays began to feed.
Raise your wings! These large fish can reach over 10 feet across!
They swirled around in the soup of plankton. Sometimes they almost collided in their feeding runs, but one ray would bend its body or change trajectory to avoid a direct crash. I actually got a pretty good look at the ray’s intended prey, a copepod backlit by my LCD screen. Plankton was all around me so rays would come swooping right over my head. Since my lens made everything appear half the size, when taking pictures the rays looked far away and small, and each time I took a break to just watch them I was surprised how close and how big they where. A large Reef Manta Rays have a disc (what some might call a wingspan) of over 10 feet. Despite this massive size they are dwarfed by their big cousins the Giant Oceanic Manta Rays. I hear you can dive with them off the Socorro Islands in Mexico.
Eye to Eye with a Giant. Manta Rays seem to show some capability for cognition.
These rays move up and down the coast in search of higher concentrations of plankton, which happens to be attracted to light. This is why divers light the dark waters up. This all began in the 1970’s with the opening of a resort on the Kona coast. One of the design choices this hotel made was having large lights illuminating the surf, so that guests could watch the waves crashing on the coast at night. Unintentionally, these lights drew in planktonic life. Mantas, which have the largest brains of any fish, soon began learning that this area was a good place feed. Soon divers where trying to get in the water with these majestic creatures. Special made lights were constructed to draw rays into deeper water, which is better to dive in. For many years this was a popular site to do manta ray night dives. However, in 1999 the rays vanished for several weeks. In search of the rays, dive guides began searching the coast to look for there new hang out. Sightings of manta rays by fishermen, led to garden eel cove. The first night lights where placed out, a manta immediately showed up and soon this site was established as a Manta Ray hotspot. Still the rays sometimes don’t show. Lucky for me though, the night I was diving was filled with over fifteen hungry mantas.
Welcome to the Mantapocalypse, there are over 6 rays in this frame.
After a while watching the rays our guide lead us into the reef. It was very different once the sun had set. The colorful fish were gone, sleeping in the coral labyrinth. The predators were out. Eels slithered through the broken terrain, sticking their heads into caves. Our guide said that when the eels grab something to big to swallow they will constrict it like a python, until it pops, I was hoping to see/film this behavior as it sounded unbelievable. Circling the eels, Bluefin Trevally waited for the serpentine predators to miss a fleeing fish and snap it up themselves. Air begun to run low and the ocean had drained my body heat, it was time to hit the surface. I really enjoyed this dive and have to highly recommend it. It was one of the most incredible experiences I have had, and my mother shares that sentiment. I will definitely be back.
A spotlight illuminates a Moray eel hunting along the coral reef, while a trevally circles above, waiting to snatch fish the eel fails to grab.
Sadly, Manta rays have been declining in recent years, as human pressure on the ocean intensifies. Manta are hunted in several parts of the world, both for food, and more recently for there gill rakers which have become a made-up Chinese medicine. Even in places where they are not specifically targeted like in Hawaii, where they have been protected since 2009, the Rays find themselves accidentally caught in nets as bycatch, one of the rays swimming around was missing a cephalic fin, and another's was damaged, likely due to being tangled in nylon, either from a net or a fishing line. I hope maybe sharing my experience with these beautiful creatures help get you interested in helping them out. Check out Seafood Watch to learn more about bycatch and what seafood is best the eat to avoid leading to the needless deaths of Manta Rays, dolphins, sharks, turtles, and albatross.
