Breaching Manta Ray..

Saw this yesterday, thought it was going to start barrel-roll feeding but then it accelerated upwards and disappeared in a glare of light as the setting sun bounced off it's white belly before it crashed back down with a booming slap that unfortunately is not audible on the video.

Has anyone else managed to be this lucky?

German Channel. Palau 11th Feb, 2010

Cheers

Richard

Breaching Manta

Hi Richard

Very cool.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time, well done mate.

I have seen one guy shoot one from under the surface and then follow it out of the water and back in.

He was snorkelling and nailed it.

yep, right place right time (rprt).

I would love to see that piece of footage!

Cheers

Richard

Whooooaaaaa! That is a serious belly-flop!!!

I have certainly never seen anything like that in German Channel...

FANTASTIC!

Here's an embed:

[vimeohd]9391573[/vimeohd]

Very cool Richard!

Mike

Thats awesome...

Wags, see if you can get that footage posted ... Sounds amazing

Dive safe

DeanB

Way cool Richard!

Had a Eagle Ray do that in Cayman a few years ago...It came real close to me and started making strange movements then shot up from 60' or so....obviously it was trying to shrug of a Remora.

Mike

WOW! I would be beside myself if I had captured that activity.

Cheers

Todd

Awesome shot - Richard! Did you cut the shot then or just for the post? Would love to see the behavior right after...

The problem with that shot is that now you'll obsess about getting a topside breach to intercut the 2 clips

Thanks all for the compliments and thanks Eric for the embed.

The rest of the clip has nothing really of interest in it, after the ray hits the surface it rolls up it's wings slightly, drops down head first, levels off, then swims away through a net of bubbles from the 5 or so other divers there. No twitching, rubbing of sore spot on belly or waving to the crowd of supporter mantas in the stands with big foam hands and score cards that were just out of shot, really quite dull.....

The problem with that shot is that now you'll obsess about getting a topside breach to intercut the 2 clips

Or putting a camera on the Manta for a 'manta eye-view' breach

Dive safe

DeanB

pretty cool Richard.

All that time in Yap and i never saw that

pretty cool Richard.

 

All that time in Yap and i never saw that

Or got jiggy or bought a round ...

Dive safe

DeanB

Does anyone have a trained Manta?

Has anyone shot a breaching whale or dolphin from just below the surface?

If you could rig that one up......uber cool!

Cheers

Richard

Does anyone have a trained Manta?

Has anyone shot a breaching whale or dolphin from just below the surface?

If you could rig that one up......uber cool!

 

Cheers

Richard

CGI

Very cool footage....

On the subject of rigging shots, back in 2000 I designed a housing that would be dragged behind a boat, remote controlled directional fins and rear facing camera, lure attached with the aim of filming game fish. Imagine to my chagrin and pleasure combined when I saw footage of a Mako that could only have been shot with such a device some 2 years later. Anyone out there involved with such projects?

I was asked by a fisherman on Little Cayman a while ago to put together such a system that would broadcast live footage from the boat to a website, only problem was wireless didn't extend that far out from the island and the satellite link was too expensive.

But I would like to work on that here. Maybe not live but there are fishing tournaments here with some fish aggregating devices luring in some big sports fish. Would be great to capture the chase...!

Cheers

Richard

I remember a couple of years back when an Eagle Ray flew out of the water and, unfortunately, did it at the same time as a boat going by. The eagle ray flew into a woman killing her and landed in the boat. It was also killed. Took place somewhere in the Carribean. Sad to say as I love eagle rays and women.

Steve

I remember a couple of years back when an Eagle Ray flew out of the water

That was in 2008 in the Keys. The strange thing was right around the same time it happened again, injuries but no fatalities if I recall correctly...