The number-one thing to do on the island of Hawaii, I learned while I was waiting my turn to do that thing, is the night excursion to see the manta rays feed on plankton in Keauhou Bay.
The sun was setting in a splendor of gold, orange, and scarlet as Mike and I met his niece and her husband at the headquarters of Hawaii Island and Ocean Tours, with whom we had booked this excursion. Their employee Haley gave us wet suits, snorkels, and instructions: float horizontally, don't let your feet drop, and never, never touch a ray. The oils on human hands disturb the mucous coating on the rays, causing bacterial infection and infiltration that can be fatal. The manta rays would come within inches of our faces and bodies, she said, and they might touch us, but we were never to touch them.
Understood.
We struggled into our wet suits, picked up our masks and snorkels, and followed Haley to the pier, where she introduced us to Captain Randy and Ola, our guide in the water. Then, the sunset still weeping its beautiful colors over the ocean, we stepped into the boat and took off.
In five or ten minutes Captain Randy stopped the boat in Keauhou Bay, in front of the Hilton Hotel. Ola slipped into the water with a long, surf-board-like raft, then ordered us one at a time into the water to hold onto a loop of rope attached to the float. We each put a swimming noodle between our waist and our hips so that we floated perfectly horizontal. We put on our masks and snorkels and put our heads in the water.
Blue lights on the raft shone into the ocean, all the way to the white-sand bottom. Soon they attracted plankton, which shone and swirled like bright specks of dust in the blue light. The manta rays, supposedly, would soon be there to eat the plankton. And, yes, below us a manta ray swam into view. A few minutes later a second one swam below us. Each had about a five- or six-foot wing span. Then there was nothing more. I was a little disappointed. I had expected something more exciting.
Then they arrived. As we had been told, the little rays stayed on the bottom while the big rays swam through the plankton straight towards us and the top of the water. Intent on their eating, they ignored us and swam, as we had been told, close to and all around us. I would love one to have touched me, as one did Mike (he said it felt rubbery), but there was always that inch between us.
The giant black-and-white manta rays swimming through the twinkling plankton of the blue-lit water, loop-de-looping, turning and rolling was one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in nature. They were so graceful! Their enormous white mouths, criss-crossed at the back of the cavity with long thin teeth to strain the plankton, were beautiful. Their snow-white backs and undersides were beautiful, patterned with black markings so individual that our guide knew each ray by name. The enormous triangular fins waved like wings. The manta rays flew through the water like eagles on wind currents, but with the swiftness and movement of swallows flying under bridges. They shot up towards the top of the water, straight through the plankton, eating all the while, then somersaulted back down, only to return with another graceful flip. I was mesmerized, enthralled. I wanted to be a manta ray and swim like that.
"That one is Big Bertha," Ola said, pointing to the largest ray swimming around us, the biggest ray in Keauhou Bay. She was not only big; she was beautiful. I was in love with Big Bertha – her unfathomable size, her white-as-snow skin, the float and turn and dive of her body. My eyes followed her movements, up from the bottom through the blue-lit sparkling plankton, past my face, then the turn, and she came from behind my shoulder past my face again, and I did so want her to be just one inch closer before she ducked and swerved and flipped beneath me and made another pass through the plankton at the surface. There was no temptation to touch her: I could never do anything to harm these beautiful creatures
Suddenly Ola said, "Look! It's a new pup!" He and the guide for the other raft of manta ray viewers were greatly excited. No one had seen this pup before. It was a new baby. Later, back on the dock, we were told there were 273 manta rays in Keauhou Bay—now 274. Haley and Ola hoped to name the new pup LeeAnn, after a woman who had helped found the company and who had passed away a few months earlier.
We had watched the manta rays, enthralled, for fifty minutes. Back on the boat we couldn't stop expressing our excitement. It had been an unimaginably beautiful show. It had been an honor to witness these gorgeous giants, these graceful acrobats of the deep.
No comments:
Post a Comment