Swimming with Majestic Manta Rays and Other Antics

We consider ourselves among the lucky few to have had the opportunity to swim alongside the magnificent, majestic Reef Manta Rays (Mobula alfredi) in the cobalt blue waters of the Bora Bora lagoon.

Monday, 6^th June began like most others, with Louis and I the first to arise, Louis readying himself to go ashore for a run and me finishing up my yoga practice. We had organized a diving session with Niki, a charming Frenchman who has long since naturalized, with his wife and daughter, in this sublime spot in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. The dive boat was to arrive at 07:45, so I set breakfast out early for the whole crew and headed off in the dinghy with Louis in search of croissants and a supposed early morning fruit and vegetable market. It was, yet another holiday in French Polynesia, the feast of Pentecost, so almost everything was closed. We did find some tasty pastries and made our way back to the quay at Vaitape, the sole village on the island - a tourist haven, with a bounty of black pearl shops, artisanal markets, art galleries, tee-shirt bazaars, and pareo (sarong) vendors.

Louis jumped aboard first to get the engine started and I cast off. However, I lost my footing and ended up in the drink, dropped my phone and panicked. Louis, the voice of reason, attempted to soothe my concerns. The phone, he said, is waterproof and we can see it lying on the bottom, a mere 2 meters down below. Thank goodness for the crystal-clear waters of Bora Bora! After 3 failed attempts by me to dive down and retrieve the phone, Louis was dispatched to Irene IV to collect, the 60-breath scuba tank. While waiting on the quay, shivering in wet clothing, with lots of sympathy from locals gathered around, I noticed a pair of young gardeners loading a dinghy with plants. I thought, a rake, that might help my cause (later Louis assured me that a rake, would have been useless. When was the last time you saw a 2-meter-long rake? He guffawed.) I ran over to the gardeners and asked in my best French, if they might have a rake to help retrieve my sunken phone (now 15 minutes submerged). Without hesitation, one of them ripped off his tee-shirt, kicked off his flipflops, and dived in, only to quickly reappear, phone in hand! I thanked him profusely, Merci mille fois!, Vous êtes tres gentil!, Je n’ai pas les mots pour vous remercier sufficant! I offered them some pastries, which they respectfully declined, saying, “Mais c’est normale pour nous! Nous sommes les Polynésiens!”

After a hurried breakfast aboard, on the dot of 07:45, the dive boat arrived, with Niki, the dive master, and Marcel the captain. We had booked a private boat so that I, the jittery diver, might always have Niki at my side. It worked like a charm. He set me at ease, never letting go, and joking and smiling underwater continuously – no mean feat with a regulator stuck in your mouth and a large mask covering your face!

Each morning the Rays swim to our dive spot on the shores of Bora Bora to participate in a marvel of the nurture of nature. The small cleaner wrasse fish give the manta rays a clean each morning, sometimes lasting as much as an hour. Their small size enables them to survive on the tiny pests that cover their clients. They even explore the mantas’ gaping mouths and remove the parasites stuck inside the mantas’ gills, a precarious job for a small fish! Each fish tends to a different part of the manta’s body. The manta surrenders completely allowing the cleaner wrasse fish to attend to their jobs efficiently. We witnessed the symbiotic shower in awe at the wisdom of the natural world. Thanks to the diligence of the people of Bora Bora regarding rubbish collection, (boat side), plentiful recycling stations, a ban on plastic bags in supermarkets, bans on washing products that are toxic to ocean life, the mellow mantas (often living to the ripe old age 50) and their buddies, the cleaner wrasse fish, can live as they have evolved to, in warm transparent waters, for all of us to enjoy.

Later in the week, it was Rob’s turn to partake in the fully clad, sudden, full submersion experience! While happily motoring along in the tender, with the full crew aboard, after a delectable lunch ashore, we hit a bommie at full tilt. Rob, at the bow, was jettisoned in a tumble off the boat into jostling waves. We were all fortunately thrown forward, as it turns out. One of the greatest dangers, when thrown overboard in a dinghy, is getting mixed up with the engine propeller. Rob had rolled over the bow and under the boat. Louis, at the tiller, with the kill cord attached to his wrist (thankfully he is anal about that), had been jolted forward, which jerked the kill cord off the tiller handle and hence killed the engine, so the prop was not rotating when Rob was immersed.  We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when Rob surfaced all limbs intact, albeit nerves a shade frayed. The left-over gateaux from lunch in a box on Heidi’s knee, ended up smeared all over the boat, and Heidi’s face, adding a little levity to the situation. A quick change aboard Irene IV and Rob was off to the Bora Yacht Club to challenge Louis to a game of pool washed down with plentiful local Hinano beers.

Manta Trust

“Manta rays are important cultural and socio-economic assets in French Polynesia, with ecotourism contributing over US$3.6 million annually to the local economy. Yet very little is known about the ecology and status of their population. The French Polynesia Manta Project was established in 2015 to study the population of manta rays in French Polynesia. Using photo-identification, this citizen science program has allowed the collation of a valuable dataset of manta ray sightings over nearly two decades. The data collected so far has provided the first insights into the distribution patterns and population characteristics, as well as information about threats to manta rays in French Polynesia… While manta rays are protected in French Polynesia by the Code for the Environment, they may face threats related to the region’s expanding tourism and coastal development…Integral to the success of this project is the involvement of local communities. Fostering collaboration with dive tourism operators, we hope to not only increase citizen science participation to facilitate long-term data collection, but also increase awareness and stewardship for manta rays and their habitats. Together, we will be better equipped to support effective conservation for these globally vulnerable species.”