Here, mantas circle overhead to be cleaned by goldies, cleaner wrasse and butterflyfish. The first cleaning station is reached in a shallower sandy area at 21 metres/70 feet. It’s a gentle drift dive that begins with a descent into 26 metres/85 feet of water in the middle of a small amphitheater teeming with life.
Manta Reef, Mozambique – This is the area’s showcase dive site, famous for a couple of manta cleaning stations.Here are a few you may want to explore: Manta Bay, located just off Nusa Penida, Bali features a number of cleaning stations Manta Alley or Makassar Point in Komodo National Park where it’s not unusual to see 20 or more and Manta Sandy in northern Raja Ampat.
Indonesia – With close to 18,000 islands, the world’s largest archipelago offers a number of dive sites to swim with manta rays (not to mention more than 600 coral and 3000 fish species).
November to early January and most of April and May are ideal times to come face-to-face with these gentle giants. These volcanic islands, particularly San Benedicto, are world-renowned for the up-close and personal encounters divers experience with the giant Pacific manta ray. Isla San Benedicto, Mexico – Firmly located in liveaboard territory where David Valencia snapped this remarkable photo, Isla San Benedicto is one of four of the Socorro Islands off the west coast of Mexico in the eastern Pacific Ocean.Why not plan some club trips to any of the following destinations where your guests might get their own manta memory to take home… For divers who dream of sharing their scuba bubbles with a manta ray, diving the right place at the right time of year will certainly help increase the chances of making this dream a reality. But mantas are also found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world, making diving with this majestic creature more accessible than you may think. This occurred non-stop for the entirety of our dive.”ĭavid Valencia recounts his incredible encounter with the giant Pacific manta in the remote waters of Socorro. As the manta soaked up the bubbles, I could look into its eye and see it processing our interaction. 5 meters/16 feet from wingtip to wingtip) was gliding over me to get to my bubbles. During this dive while we were playing with the mantas, my dive buddy, Adil, happened to be filming as a black manta slowly squeezed between us. It’s an amazing sight to see and it also provides divers with a unique insight into their behavior. To the delight of divers, mantas enjoy bubbles on their bellies and they will soak up the bubbles as long as there are divers. It’s not just the sighting of mantas that can make dives with them special, but also the type of interaction. In Mexico’s Socorro Islands, located some 250 miles SE of Cabo San Lucas, interactions with mantas are magnificent. In certain parts of the world, these mantas are becoming increasingly rare as they face persistent fishing pressure. However, mantas are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species. It’s no wonder divers fly all over the world to see these gentle giants. “Giant Pacific Mantas are graceful in every turn. Giant Pacific Manta and Diver by David Valencia
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