Eco-Tour Review: Manta Night Dive

Monica Nelson Face To Face With A Manta Ray

Manta Night Dive Practices To Watch Out For:

It's really important to pick an eco-tour that is, above all, respectful of the animals and their safety. Therefore, I recommend you follow the guidelines of the non-profit Hawaii Ocean Watch and don't dive with any operator that:

Uses hull lights- The manta rays do barrel rolls close to dive lights because the lights attract the plankton they're feeding on. Therefore, it can be quite irresponsible to attach lights to the bottom of a boat, because manta rays are likely to accidentally run into some of the blunt hardware nearby, resulting in serious injury.

Free dives on the mantas: While there are many other places in the world where you can free dive with mantas without disturbing them, this is an experience that is best viewed stationary, either on scuba sitting on the bottom or floating at the surface with a snorkel. Diving down on the mantas while they feed at this spot appears to be alarming to them. Not to worry though, you lose nothing from the experience by staying stationary, the mantas come so close to you on their own that sometimes you actually have to duck a bit while they barrel roll inches from your face.

Allows divers to touch them: Tour guides should brief divers before entering the water to not touch the manta rays as they have a protective coating on their body that helps protect them from infections. Touching can also scare and stress the animals, startling them enough to dart off and potentially run into something that they could become injured on.

Anchors on coral or allow the touching of coral: This should just be a common practice for absolutely any dive tour.

Keeps their props running: One of the only things I'm more afraid of than the dark is being chopped up by a boat propeller. Some manta tour operators don't attach to a mooring and leave their props running. Prop marks and injuries have already been documented on mantas. It's incredibly dangerous to humans as well, especially while diving in the dark.

Eco-Tour Review: Jack's Diving Locker 2 Tank Manta Night Dive

Respect Towards Animals: Great

Tour followed all manta night dive guidelines laid out by Hawaii Ocean Watch (read more about these guidelines above) and it was clear that they found them very important for the safety of the animals.

Divers are sat in a circle called the "campfire" that has dive lights in the center. The divers are told to remain stationary so the manta rays can choose if they want to come up and check you out or feed off some of the plankton collecting around your flashlight. They're large animals doing barrel rolls to feed so it's really important that they have this large amount of space in the water column to prevent them from running into people.

Conservation Element: Good

While there wasn't a briefing about manta ray conservation after the dive, the tour operator was really open to handing out some of our Keiko Conservation pamphlets on the dangers mantas face and how to get involved. He said they used to give out similar in the past and would be happy to have some more to distribute to divers. The diver operator also pushes for stronger regulations to better protect the mantas.

Dive Review: Great

We had a really amazing time! I've done a few different dives with manta rays throughout the world and they're all a bit different. This one felt a bit like being on another planet. The mantas come swooping down mere inches from you and it's beautiful to watch them gracefully feed.

Likelihood Of Seeing Mantas: Very Likely

While no eco-tour can 100% guarantee you'll see the animals you're looking for, this one has a pretty good track record of manta sightings.

(COMING SOON)

You can read a bit more about my experience diving with Jack's Diving Locker.