MY FIRST MANTA
We have one day off after the gangster party in Crystal divers. That night was really wonderful with the costume and the people. Minni decided to give us one day holiday because the next day there will be no instructor also so it’s ok to be relaxed for a while. But I asked Minni can I dive on that off day? And she said yes, but like always there is rule for diving… No alcohol at least 8 hours before diving… wonderful! There was still enough time to do that and MANTA POINT here I come!
The next day we gathered in Crystal to go to Manta Point. There were Asmui as our instructor, Matt, Mike, Michelle, 2 others guest for snorkeling and of course me 😉 We used “Nagisa” to go there and we will be there within 1,5 hours. There are big waves to Manta Point and the little boy ( the snorkeling boy) can’t handle it and he seems to have sea sick along the way.. .
We will do 3 dives that time and first stop is Manta Point. We still need to look the manta before we go under the water because it’s a big area and if we false to jump, we will not see the manta. So after couple minutes we were ready to jump and search for the Manta. Matt – my buddy – surprise when I told him that I used 6 kilo for the weight belt and he said just try 5 kilo and I will carry the other 1 kilo for safety. Ok I was trying to use 5 kilo again and hope the last accident would not be happened again (see Adventure Diving) and it didn’t! We search for the manta under the water now, waited for a couple minutes and the manta come out.. Wow, there they are… Fly under the water elegantly. Only 4 mantas that time but its enough for me and it was the first time I saw big MANTA! They fly under me, beside me, and above me… It was really cool!
We need to stay in the surface before do the second dive ( to eliminate the nitrogen in our body) and this time the boy will spend the time in the island there because he didn’t get any better in the boat. The next stop is Toya Pakeh and we will do the drift dive, in this place the current is unpredictable so we need to watch the current and be careful of the down current. Time to get into the water… yes it was drift dive… You just need to keep your neutral buoyancy and the water will take you around. Matt always warns me to see the current, where will the current go because like I said before its unpredictable in this area. Well honestly I still love to see the manta more than this but this was pretty cool also. On safety stop I feel kind of hard to keep my buoyancy and then Matt gave me 2 more kilos for keeping my buoyancy.
Lunch time and the boy already got better after they spend time on the island. We took our lunch on boat while making surface interval for the second time. This time we went to Mangrove/ Jack Point and drift dive again but this time is better than the last one because this is one way drift. The boat will pick us up at blue corner. We let the snorkels go into the water first and enjoy the sea then we go to other side and start the drift dive. We need to maintain buddy contact and if we separated from the group we need to look for 1 minute and ascent. We saw colorful coral on the drift way, fishes and long banded sea snake. At the end of our journey, we saw spotted eagle ray, napoleon fish and TURTLE! I really enjoy the great dive that day!
