Here is a detailed itinerary and guide for Oahu to help you plan. I recommend that you also spend time on some of the other islands, especially Oahu and Kauai. Here are the top places for snorkeling around the Big Island. In fact, I spent most of my time on the Big Island in the water. In addition to the awesome manta ray dive, Kona Hawaii and the surrounding areas have plenty of great places to go snorkeling. A top pick is to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park! Missing out on the chance to see actual lava flowing from an active volcano would be a real shame when you’ve come this close. One of the great things about Hawaii is that there are so many different experiences that you can have, and there are plenty of other awesome things to do on the Big Island.
Manta rays swoop to eat the plankton that is all around between the lights (just above the divers) and the surface (just below the snorkelers). This enables them to all stay together and float easily face down in the water. Snorkelers stay on the surface, holding on to the edges of a giant rectangular floating raft. The manta rays come to eat the plankton.įor the manta ray Big Island night dive, divers sit on the bottom just behind the lights. The dive companies have set up huge spotlights on the ocean floor about 33 feet/ 10 meters underwater in Makako Bay near Garden Eel Cave. Why do you see manta rays at night? Manta rays are filter feeders. I liked the fact that we got there early and many of them were behind me, so I wasn’t actually aware of many of them until out air ran low and we left. There are a couple of dozen other divers at least. This dive is mostly spent kneeling on the bottom of the bay, gazing around at the manta rays swimming into the light from the dark, dancing as they swoop for plankton, and then disappearing back into the dark. Kailua Kona diving is more than just manta rays, but the Big Island manta ray night dive is definitely the main attraction. The Experience: Manta ray night dive, Kona I did hear some people later in my trip saying they had done the manta ray night snorkel and they had sore shoulders from hanging on in a slight swell.īook a manta ray snorkel trip here. If you have some flexibility, try to choose a night with calm seas. Manta ray Kona snorkeling involves spending most of the time holding on to a raft, so calmer conditions are best. Kona has plenty of operators to choose from and they are all pretty similar. It’s hard to know who provides the best manta ray night snorkel. The Experience: Manta ray night snorkel, Kona It was that cool!! Authenticity of experience 18 Quality of interaction with culture/ environment 19 Engagement level 19 Enjoyment 20 Difficulty to arrange 16 TOTAL TC SCORE 92 So I feel confident saying that the Hawaii manta ray night snorkel would not only be the best snorkeling on the Big Island, but probably one of the best snorkeling experiences in the world too. I didn’t do the snorkeling, but the snorkelers on our boat all shared how close the rays were to them as they glided upside down near the surface. Possibly, dare I say, one of the world’s best night dives. Definitely one of the top dives of my life. This was a night dive and there were about a dozen rays. But that was just one ray during the daytime and I really wanted to see a manta ray at night.
The verdict: Night swim with manta rays, KonaĪs a SCUBA diver, the manta dive, Kona was top of my list of things to do, especially after my previous experience manta ray diving in Thailand, which had blown me away.
#Manta night snorkel kona movie#
They look like the alien creature from the movie The Abyss. Two more enormous rays sweep through the water further above me. I peer into the dark, waiting for the manta rays to arrive.Īfter about 5 minutes, the first one arrives, aiming right for me, swimming overhead not much more than an inch from the top of my head.
I kneel on the bottom and put my flashlight away, as the spotlights are sufficient. Getting there early meant I had a front row seat. Then we settled in just behind one of the huge spotlights as soon as they were turned on. I was buddied with one of the dive masters from the trip, and we took our time diving slowly around the area, and saw a couple of tiny nudibranchs, which are always cool. We entered the water just as it was starting to get dark, before most of the divers. Map of dive boat route from Honokohau Marina to manta ray dive site There were a couple of dive boats there already, and more arrived soon after. We arrived at Makako Bay just as the sun was setting. A pleasant late afternoon ride along the coastline saw us heading towards the airport area.
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