Mantas from Palau

After having travelled to a lot of places including Galapagos, Brothers and Maldives (twice) we (Luisa and I) still had not seen any manta birotris (well, only one cruising fast...)...so we arrived to Palau and went diving the first day to German Channel. The guide told us "sometimes there are some mantas in this dive..." we, of course, thought "yeah, right" and didn´t want to advice the other people that diving with us meant seeing no mantas .... Of course, we did not see any mantas....

Later in the week we where now in the Aggressor and it was time for their scheduled dive in German Channel...more manta caption and, again, no success ... By the end of the week we where given the choice of repeating German Channel or Blue Corner, people voted, and off to German Channel we went...

So there we were, waiting in the sand, Luisa and I looked at each other knowing each other´s thoughts´ "once more... !"....the minutes passed and Ike (the guide) told us to stay there while he was going to check further away. We started to listen metal advicers, tanks etc in the distance and you know how is that, everybody moving their heads, like the exorcist girl, looking for whatever...

Finally Ike came back and he was followed by a group of snappers and then, on the surface, a train of several mantas cruised by and came back. Ike told us to come up to take pics and you can imagine our ascent rate (more or less like those navy submarines breaching the surface...). It was our day and we stayed with the feeding mantas for about 50 minutes. They would just circle us around not seeming to care about me taking pics. Sometimes I was looking through the viewfinder to take a pic of one and another one had to turn sideways to avoid crashing me while flying by only a foot away ... great experience!!!

Beautiful; one can never see enough of these.

sounds fantastic david. an experience worth waiting for.

Hi Dave,

Swimming out in the blue water of German Channel on an incoming tide brings back nice memories of Palau. Ike and I worked together for four years on the boat before I moved back to the States last year. I can't wait to go back to Palau. The place is awesome! Thanks for sharing the photos of the mantas; they are great and it looks like you had a good experience with the mantas right below the surface, I'm jealous

Doug

Outstanding David!

I love it when the mantas go off feeding at the surface like that.

Too bad Doug always got in my way..

Great photos!

But I must say I am very surprised you did not see mantas on two trips in the Maldives. I have been going there for the last 10 years, and I saw mantas 80% of my dives there. Some places, there were over 50-80 of them dancing around us for over an hour. If you go back to the Maldives again try Baa atoll for mantas next time (between June and November would be the best bet).

MJ

Wonderful experience, David! It looks like you were very close. I enjoyed diving with the mantas in Palau too. They would get very close, looping through the water like a stunt plane. The only problem was I had my macro lens on.

Hi Dave,

 

Swimming out in the blue water of German Channel on an incoming tide brings back nice memories of Palau. Ike and I worked together for four years on the boat before I moved back to the States last year. I can't wait to go back to Palau. The place is awesome! Thanks for sharing the photos of the mantas; they are great and it looks like you had a good experience with the mantas right below the surface, I'm jealous

 

Doug

Thank you Loftus and Photovan....I cannot get enough of this animals either...

Doug, I saw your excelent pics on board!

Mike, I was lucky enough to be almost alone in that dive with the mantas as people got tired of the current and did not have camera

Mak_Jing, that´s what I mean´t with the story...we were really unlucky with the mantas!

Canuck, I was going to use a 17-70 to get some fish pictures but Luisa told me: "I am not going to bear with you and your crying if we see the mantas and you don´t carry a manta lens..." so I took a 16mm... Isn´t that love?