Above: Manta on a poster. That’s the closest we got to any manta.
I had a day off from travel activities yesterday. I heard this theory that with rainfall, plankton sinks down and whale-sharks don’t surface. With the recent heavy rain I didn’t expect the plankton to have risen yet. So, just as well I didn’t go out looking for them as those people who did go came back disappointed. Instead I attended to business at home over 2G mobile internet which was rather slow.
But today with the good weather (finally), the day seemed full of promise. I had arranged to go diving, hopefully to see some manta rays.
We met at the dive shop at 0630 and left around 0700 on board the boat Noah. I asked if I was the giraffe; and the divemaster said “Two-by-two, please”.
We did three dives as follows:
- One dive at San Miguel: There was no pre-dive briefing, so we didn’t know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised by what we saw, which was a wall with lots of soft light-pink coral, and some hard green ones on the seabed. This was meant to be a bit of a check on our abilities but it didn’t quite seem that way.
- Two dives at Manta Bowl: There was a minimalist briefing for these dives. The current at Manta Bowl is known to be strong. We were issued with hooks so we could fix ourselves to some rock while waiting for mantas at various locations. Sadly, they didn’t turn up.
The first Manta Bowl dive was probably the most intense I have ever experienced. Apart from a drift dive, I had never experienced current like this before and having to use a hook. At the strongest moments, I held on to rock and knelt on the seabed in addition to using the hook. In the milder moments, I hooked myself and floated in the current but thought that I may have been slightly over-weighted.
A visiting Pekinese dive master from Puerto Galera was amazing; he was rock-steady at maintaining his depth despite the conditions. It is as if he doesn’t breathe or use his hands and feet; he floats in a somewhat kneeling position and maintains it when the rest of us were parked up and hooked in.
The Manta Bowl dives were not completely a waste of time as it gave me a new skill and improved my confidence in strong currents. And we did see a couple of white-tip reef sharks.