Day 2: Manta, Manta, How I Love You!

By the way, have I mentioned how incredibly delicious the food is here? There would be rice with a couple of other dishes, usually local Papuan food, to accompany it. Dessert was then served after lunch and dinner. For lunch, dessert consisted of chilled mixed fruits in different fruit juices or concoction of the sort. For dinner, dessert was a delight! Different kinds of cake was served each day. Coming from Bangkok, let's just say I didn't miss the food back there at all.

Man, I would have gotten fatter if I stayed for longer. :)

Oh, and did I mention me and my mom are the only guests in the whole resort? We're very lucky. We can choose wherever we want to go! So today is our manta dive day. Although it is currently towards the end of manta season, there could still be some lingering in the area.

We also met Sarah Lewis yesterday when we arrived. She is the project leader in Indonesia for the Manta Trust project. This non-profit organization's main goal is global conservation and education of the Manta species. The project was just recently founded in 2011, so it is relatively new, but I think they have an honorable goal.

Manta rays are one of the most popular attractions for tourists and divers around the world, while at the same time, many aspects of their lives are still unknown. The Manta Trust project aims to expand the knowledge of these majestic creatures and protect the species through education and conservation of its natural habitat.

From what I understand, Sarah is in Raja Ampat to look for new manta sites and collect data for the project. She is also educating the Sorido Bay team on the mantas and what the project is trying to achieve. I actually learned a couple of things from the pamphlets she had. Now I know how to tell if a manta is a male or female, and whether the female is pregnant. I also learned how to spot the difference between an oceanic manta and a reef manta.

But the most interesting thing I learned was how each manta can be identified by the patterns on their underside (belly). It is the manta's form of fingerprint because each individual would have its own unique pattern. Thus, the Manta Trust project also includes what is called IDtheManta where they collect pictures of the mantas' underside, where the pictures were taken, and when. Two pieces of information can be obtained from this project. First, it is to basically try to identify as many individual mantas as possible. Second, with the knowledge of where the pictures were taken, the migratory path and distance traveled of manta rays could be collected if the same manta is spotted in a different location.

The neat part of IDtheManta is that anyone from around the world can submit pictures they have taken of the underside of mantas they have encountered. It's pretty cool!

More information on the organization and projects can be found here: www.mantatrust.org.

Wow, I'm like totally advocating for them. I should get paid for this! Hahaha! Or at least get a free t-shirt. :)P

So Sarah is going with us on the dives to collect more data and possibly identify more mantas in the area. Our first dive site is called Manta Sandy, a cleaning station for the mantas. It is an open, sandy area where we can hover around and wait for the appearance of the mantas. After a bit of wandering around, two mantas showed up!

They were both reef mantas, but of a different size and color. I was so happy that I could figure out, without anyone having to tell me, the bigger one is a female and pregnant. She also has a nipped wing. The smaller one is black! I've never seen a black manta before, so that was awesome! The pregnant female kept on circling back to where we were until a boat came and dropped divers in on top of us. She was probably scared away by the noise.

Sarah and the crew were very upset because apparently they were not supposed to drive through the cleaning station, let alone drop divers in at that point. You're supposed to get dropped off in the vicinity and swim there as not to disturb the mantas. All the local guides in the area know of this rule. When our boat crew talked to their boat crew, they were also being very evasive and avoided the questions. We also found out that the boat disposed some sort of kerosene or oil into the ocean as it was driving by. We could still smell it when we surfaced.

So, naturally, we hunted that boat down. Hahaha! Turned out it was one of the boats coming from a liveaboard; the Damai, Benoa. We approached the Damai through the drizzle and told the guy in charge on board of the problems we encountered with their crew. Kind of like a warning, you know. Steve, who also went diving with us, plans on emailing the company to let them know of the incident. I'm guessing if they really wanted to, they could press charges against the company because Raja Ampat is a marine protected area after all. And Sorido Bay is all about conservation so they do not take things like this lightly.

As a diver, it is important for us to choose companies and guides who are committed to preserving the environment in which we are travelling in. I think it is immoral for people to assume innocence from ignorance because you are the one who is making the choice to be ignorant. Therefore, please make sure that when you are on vacation, especially to a sensitive ecosystem, the company you are with also has a goal of protecting and preserving the environment. Don't make your vacation one that will wreak a path of destruction.

For our surface interval between the first and second dive, we took a break by the local village of Arborek. It was raining so I didn't really walk around and stayed by the jetty. But I mean, I was already wet so I guess I should have taken a short tour. Oh well. Maybe next time. :)

The welcome sign.

The jetty resting area.
As you can see, it is very gloomy.

Local children fishing in the rain!

Eddy and my mom.

Eddy and me!

I was also taken by the conversation between Steve and Sarah about hypnosis and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). Apparently, Steve's a certified hypnotist. And a computer engineer. And a dive instructor. And he's funny. I acquired a totally higher form of respect for him from that moment on.

It's really inspiring to see how one person can achieve so much in life. I also respect that he didn't bind himself to one place and took the courage to actually move out of his comfort zone. Because, honestly, it takes a lot to leave the familiar behind. Hell, I respect the whole Sorido team for being there considering they are all from different countries.

For the second dive we went back to Manta Sandy again to test our luck with the runaway mantas. We waited and waited and waited. I ended up on the sandy floor looking around at the small fish that made its home there. I also saw a flatfish! It was an interesting looking fish with this one long, slim fin that pops up vertically as it swam away.

Finally someone banged their tank and we saw a manta passing by. Turned out it was the pregnant female from earlier. We decided to follow her for a little bit. We came to a spot where we stopped and just watched her.

I don't really know how to explain encounters with manta rays. It's just a humbling experience. They are such an amazing, beautiful, and unique creature. I feel like when we talk about fish, people just assume that they're inconsequential. Meaning they don't have any feelings or capacity for much knowledge, like say a dog or even a squirrel (I guess the cute factor helps). But ever since I started diving, I've taken on a totally new perspective. Especially with manta rays who all seem to have a personality of their own.

After a while a black manta swam by. I wasn't sure if it was the same one from before, but Sarah and Steve took off after it while me and my mom went with Eddy to surface.

By the way, sorry for the lack of underwater photos. We didn't bring any camera. :( More like I don't have one, and my mom didn't bring hers. All of the upcoming photos of our dives are kindly provided by Steve and Jutta from when they dived with us.

The third and last site of the day was at Misokon. As opposed to the previous two dives, this one is a regular reef dive. Don't be fooled when I say "regular" because this reef is beautiful! Just an assortment of corals and fish. A group of yellow snappers kept swimming under me which made me feel kinda awesome, hahaha! Like a mama fish. :)

Eddy, our dive guide, pointed out a small yellow frogfish for us to see. I could barely make it out, even though it was an odd and bright color. Then he pointed out these two tiny, tiny, tiny things for me. I really couldn't make them out. I saw that they were moving, but really I couldn't see, for the life of me, what they were. And being in the water with limited forms of communication, I okayed to him saying that I got it. I later realized that they were pygmy seahorses! These two were really small, like the size of the tip of my fingernails, literally!

We also saw a really huge giant clam (sounds repetitive doesn't it?). It was probably around a meter wide with lots of corals growing on its shells. Eddy touched it as a demonstration, so I assumed that it won't burn and touched it, too. Hahaha! It flinched a little, but didn't completely close. It was soft and slick, which was interesting. Makes you feel like it would be a tough meat to chew, if you know what I mean.

Then! As we were ascending along the reef's slope, I found a wobbegong! All by myself! They kept talking about this fish from the moment I got here, so I was very excited to have spotted something everybody else missed. :D It was really cool. A wobbegong is basically a carpet shark that camouflages with the ocean floor. It has really interesting intricate designs around its mouth, almost like a snowflake decoration during Chirstmas.

Doesn't he just blend in?

See what I mean when I say his beard has an interesting snowflake design?

We ended the day with a delicious dinner and a nice long conversation afterwards. It's really nice to be in good company with good, laughable stories. :) Beats watching TV and surfing Facebook a million times over!