I Love Manta!!

On April 2007 I went to Derawan looking for manta ray. 5 days LOB with Sea Safari III, we only saw the invisible manta! "No luck", "No Manta", "Manta, where are you?", those what I wrote in my logbook. But eventhough we have no luck with the manta, the barracuda at Maratua Channel was stunning! That was the highlight of our trip, not the invisible manta!

First time I saw manta was on October 2007, when we dive with Grand Komodo in Raja Ampat. We dive in a slope, 12m depth, the site named as Manta Point. After waiting for couple min, we saw what we're waiting for. Finally I saw manta!! So big and swam gracefully. Looks like they were flying or dancing for me and I fell in love with manta :-)

In June 2008, we dive to Komodo, We saw 6 mantas at Manta Alley, but there were current and surge :-( The enjoyable dive with manta was at Tatawa Kecil. Only saw 2 mantas but the mantas were more friendly, they swam closer to us, so close! It was long and enjoyable dive.




@ Manta Alley, Komodo




@Tatawa Kecil, Komodo


in June 2009, I dive at Manta Point, Nusa Penida, Bali, where you can see manta all year around. But when we dive there, there were lots of divers and viz was not that good (maybe because of the plankton). And the worst was two divers with big cameras chased the manta away :-(

In January 2010, again I went to Raja Ampat. We met 6 mantas at Black Bird, dive about 70 min. On the last 10min, it were only me, my buddy, our lovely guide, Noak, and the mantas! After that dive, my love with manta became deeper:-) Some pictures of mantas here Close encounters with the Mantas.


And here is the video of 4 mantas playing around us.

I really hope I can dive with lots of mantas very soon!