Manta Point

Despite having a caught a little tropical cold, we booked a dive trip and hoped for the best. Last time we were here we went diving twice and both times the dives were just OK, nothing spectacular. This time we totally lucked out! There were just 2 other divers with us and we were able to go over toward one of the little islands surrounding Bali. We dove just off the coast of Nusa Penida in Crystal Bay. This area is know to see the Mula Mula or Sun fish and has a lot of beautiful soft coral and lots of fish on a steep reef wall. The dive was nice and warm and very relaxing. They anchored the boat just off shore and we were able to swim into a secluded beach to eat lunch and relax before the drive to the second dive spot. The second dive was going to be at Manta Point. Obviously by it's name you can probably guess what we were looking for here, we were hoping to see a Manta Ray feeding on the plankton. After a beautiful 30 min ride to the dive site, we were right off a rocky shoreline and were told to only go down about 7 to 10 meters. We were following the dive master and swimming toward the coastline when out of the dark I saw the first Manta. Wow! It was incredible and a little creepy. All of the sudden they were everywhere! Swimming above, below and all around us. They were very big, the smallest one probably had a 10 foot wingspan and the largest, maybe 16 feet. They were very graceful for being such a large animals, were were all in awe. My sinuses were hurting from having a cold so I surfaced and let the rest of the divers finish without me. When I got back to the boat I could see the Manta Ray's from the surface and if I had seen that before I may have been to freaked out to dive. They were just so big and dark! Even for Ben who has been on hundreds, maybe thousands of dives, this one was special. I posted two videos, the first one is from the dive company that we went with and is a good example of what we experienced, the second is Ben's amature video of the boat ride back.