We started the day on a drift dive at Round the Horn. The inflatable tenders shuttled us out in groups of 4-6 and dropped us off to descend and drift back home with the current. This dive site was highly anticipated because it is a popular place to stake out and look for manta rays.
The current runs south to north along the coral wall at a pretty good clip so we took the tenders out about a kilometer and jumped in for the ride. After traveling about half the distance of the wall there is a ridge that hangs out looking into the deep blue and is often a spot where mantas will glide by. We descended to about 85-90 ft and camped on the ridge peering out. On the first dive the ridge was littered with barracuda, but no mantas. On our second dive we hung out on the ridge again trying to stay put in the very powerful current. We were getting close to our no-decompression limits so we slowly began swimming back to the main wall. Within just a few minutes a massive manta appeared underneath us making a similar track toward the wall about 50ft below. The video will not do this justice because you cannot get a true sense of the size, but these are enormous and graceful animals that seem utterly dreamlike. Rather than swimming, they appear to fly calmly through the water in slow motion. The sight of a 12ft manta ray gliding in the current perfectly illustrates the word “peace."
The first massive manta passed and then turned into the deep just as a second manta arrived. I was lucky enough to get video of both.
Watching mantas beats the shit out of network TV
In the afternoon we returned to North Horn for a full on shark feed. North Horn culminates in a perfect amphitheater with a coral head in the center. Our group arranged themselves like students in a semicircle lecture hall and then the dive crew brought the chum down on a rope for the feast. I’m a little typed-out right now and the video tells the story better than I could. Enjoy…
The Spoilsport from afar
Donna spotting dive bubbles
Dave engaged in Zodiac trade
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