DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2025 ISSUE 410

This is a large flat coral with schools of snapper and butterflyfish thick across the top of it, and on most days, mantas coming to be cleaned. We tried to do this as often as we could, and to be honest, for the first few dives we didn’t see any mantas. Couldn’t work it out. They had been thick a week before when a friend had been there, but now they had disappeared. We did see other things though, with a highlight being a blue line triggerfish. This stunning trigger swam straight towards me (in a good way in case you were wondering) as we were approaching the cleaning station, so I couldn’t miss him, and managed to get a couple of shots before the mild current took me further.

On the third such dive we were visited by a trio of divers on underwater propulsion vehicles, moving midwater over the top of the cleaning station. Hmm, wonder how long they had been around? On our last day we weren’t planning to dive Manta Point. We were about to head past it to another dive site when we got the call from another boat that there were 15+ mantas at the site. Needless to say, we went straight there. A total of around eight mantas were still there for our dive, more than enough! The cleaning station here is a large flat area, maybe basketball court sized, covered in corals. Over the area there are schools of snapper and many smaller fish flitting about. Stay to the sides of this area and remain still and the mantas will come to you.

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DiveLogAustralasia #410 February 25

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