Best place to view Manta Rays

[sujo]

On a recent trip to Roatan, my wife almost blew an ear, after 4 dives the doctor told her to stop diving (4 days left of vacation). # weeks later, she is still having some troubles with them. My wife is worried that the next couple of dives maybe her last so she wants to dive with Manta Rays. Are there places where we can go to dive and be almost guaranteed to see Mantas. I have heard that Yap/Micronesia is great spot and have also heard Mexico. Thanks

 

[DeputyDan]

Four places come to mind

Yap
Socorro (liveaboard)
Kona Hawaii
Maldives (Liveaboard)

I have only done the Hawaii Manta Ray night dive and it was awesome!

 

[mjh]

Yap is the spot. Plus weather permitting there is some fantastic diving on the outside of the reef. There is a trip report, gallery, multi-media show at our website. The main thing with Yap is picking your time of year. One season viz is down but manta numbers are high. The other season viz is great but fewer mantas. But that said we saw mantas on every dive, often trains of 12-14 going by.

 

[caymaniac]

The Big Island of Hawaii has a spot that is almost always a fun dive with the Mantas. Last April we had 13 Mantas on our night dive.
It's an incredible thing to interact with your lights as these Manta Rays feed. They are beautiful, graceful and huge, some measuring 15 foot across. We could feel the suction that they create with their wings as they pass over you, one even bumped into me...wow what an exciting dive.
There was a time period 5 years previous that we were skunked on the Manta Dive.

 

[robint]

I agree about the Big Island Hawaii for the night dive with mantas, however it isn't guaranteed. It all depends on the plankton, which they eat. When we were there we saw zero mantas on the night dive. Zip, nada seen all week that week. The last day there they told us that 4 had showed up.

Yap and Palau have good reliability in seeing them. Yap is supposed to have mantas there year round so you are pretty much guaranteed to see them at least one day. We were in Palau diving from a liveaboard back in Dec 2007 and saw 7 mantas on 2 different dives. Both times the DMs were surprised at the luck we had. They said that it was unusual to see more that a few at German Channel, particularly 2 days in a row. But the plankton was really heavy so they showed up and put on a show for us. I wouldn't go all the way to either place JUST to see mantas though.

robin

 

[bobnelson0]

Definitely the Big Island in Hawaii. Its an easy dive, not very deep and you just sit on the bottom as the swim all around you. I was there last October and the dive guide said he counted 17 manta rays that night. The great thing about that dive is that you can either dive it or snorkel it. My girlfriend is not a diver and she did the snorkeling and I think she may have had more fun than I did The dive guide had said that some snorkelers have actually been lifted out of the water by the mantas. As I diver, they get so close you have to dodge them. One of them clipped me right in the head with its wing. It was a great experience!
I would post a picture, but apparently I can't because I don't have enough posts :-(

 

[bobnelson0]

Now I have five posts, so here's a picture!

Manta Ray Dive Pic

 

[Rhone Man]

I have always heard Hawai'i for Manta Rays, but no first hand experience I'm afraid.

 

[DeputyDan]

When we did our manta ray dives in Hawaii, there were so many mantas and so close to the boat, the divers had to slip into the water one at a time and work our way down thru the school of mantas so that we could go to the pre arranged site.

One awesome experience. My kids still talk about the dives many years later.

 

[Doc]

In the Caribbean?

Night dive off of Speyside Tobago... with the right operator.

Not for the feint of heart. Twitchy stuff.

Guaranteed? An interesting word.