Kona Aggressor II - June 6-13, 2009

After breakfast we moved to Paradise Pinnacle for two dives. On the first one we all dropped down and headed to the pinnacle that the boat was moored to. Swimming along towards us what did we see: a manta! We watched it as it swam by, then continued around the pinnacle. About a minute later we saw another one! They are very graceful and calm. We swam around some more, looking for octopus, returning to the boat after about 40 minutes.

After lunch we did one dive at a site named Amphitheater. It had a long swim through and lots of lava fingers extending out away from the shore. There was quite a bit of surge pushing everyone around.

We then moved to Mantaville, just offshore from the Sheraton hotel. The hotel has a bar with very bright lights which attract plankton, which in turn attract manta rays. On our late afternoon dive we swam around for a bit and saw a manta swimming along. Back on the surface we could see a number of them slowly swimming round feeding, it was a good sign.

As opposed to the Garden Eel site, there was only one other boat present for the night dive, and they were all snorkelers. We jumped in and almost immediately saw a couple of mantas go by. We headed for the bottom 35 feet down and wedged ourselves in between some rocks. For the next 45 minutes a dozen mantas swam around us scooping up the plankton and other small sea life in the water. They did backflips, barrel rolls and fly bys, with amazing precision. They would swim right at you and your light, then, at the last minute, they would pull up and miss you. It was awesome. The lights on the Glomar Three and a Half did a great job of attracting them, they kept swooping by Rick, over and over.

As we started to run low on air, we went to the surface and got our snorkels and continued to swim with them for another 15 minutes. Back on the dive deck they continued to swim around, attracted by the lights on the boat. It had been a fantastic night, exactly what we had hoped to experience in Hawaii!