Manta Magic Coral Bay 13th September 2021

Despite our sad news we had booked a swim with the manta rays at Coral bay so we set off early.

We headed out on the boat all of us loaded up with sea sick tablets this time. We had a great snorkel off the boat through the south maze then on to the cleaning station on the back of the reef. I was so proud of my two kids they jumped straight in and took on the challenge of swimming through a small passage in the coral against the tide and then you get pushed through a gap out into the ocean. Well done guys! Once you are there you snorkel the back of the reef unfortunately for us there were no fish at the cleaning station but it was fun just the same. A cleaning station is where little fish live and big fish come there to cleaned by the little fish they go all over them removing any dead scales etc.

Next we were back on board for our swim with the Manta Rays. They are beautiful gentle creatures with high intelligence that glide through the water. Our guide for the day told us the things we might see. She said that it was rare to see more than one together and that it was also a bonus if you saw them barrel roll in the water when feeding and if we were super lucky we may see a mating chain which is when all the males follow a single female trying win her affection. It must of been our lucky day as we saw so may Mantas we couldn't keep up. They were in groups, we saw a mating chain and they were barrel rolling all over the place. What an absolutely magical experience one I will never forget.

Adam and the Manta

Adam and me up the top

Lewy 

Morf Manta 

Ningaloo reef

Maya and the Manta

Adam and Nash hanging with the turtle

Some of the reef Manta Rays which we swam with were about 5 meters in size however the oceanic Mantas can grow up to 8 meters incredible. Scientists have worked out that these beautiful creatures have friends, communicate with each other using their cephalic lobes and have even tried to communicate with divers using that method ( just we don't know what they saying, probably  "out the way").