{"id":2280,"date":"2012-12-19T07:45:56","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T12:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/?p=2280"},"modified":"2024-10-10T18:15:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T23:15:38","slug":"manta-ray-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/?p=2280","title":{"rendered":"Manta Ray awesome!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I went diving with Ocean Frontiers in the East End of Grand Cayman. \u00a0Both dives were great ; tons of fish, some lobsters (very big …), a nurse shark and amazing visibility. \u00a0All-in-all, a great time. \u00a0However, little did I know, the best was yet to come.<\/p>\n

On the way back to the dock, the captain suddenly turned around. \u00a0I had no idea why. \u00a0 Turns out he had spotted a large Manta Ray. \u00a0So he doubled back and found it once again. It was swimming at the surface so was somewhat easy to spot assuming you were wearing polarized sunglasses (cuts out glare\/sun reflection on the ocean)<\/p>\n

Here is the Manta Ray as we get close to it. \u00a0My estimate is 7ft across.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2229\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here the boat is stopped and its right next to us.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2227\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is now the best part. \u00a0Since Manta’s are essentially gentle giants, most of us on the boat grabbed our fins, masks and\u00a0snorkels and jumped into the water with it. \u00a0 I\u00a0don’t\u00a0have an underwater camera (I know, I know … ) so thanks to Simon who was on the boat with me. \u00a0Here it is ; notice the snorkeler behind.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3396-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Close up shot<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3388-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Underneath shot<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3394-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

and finally what is probably the best shot of all:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3398-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The episode, amazingly, lasted about 10 minutes. \u00a0The Manta ray was obviously not afraid of us and even double back a few times when it got too far from us. \u00a0Almost as if it wanted to play. \u00a0It got so close we could have touched it. \u00a0Of course, all on board are animal lovers so we\u00a0abstained\u00a0from doing that, even though it was tempting. \u00a0This was definitely one dive outing I will remember for a long time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few days ago, I went diving with Ocean Frontiers in the East End of Grand Cayman. \u00a0Both dives were great ; tons of fish, some lobsters (very big …), a nurse shark and amazing visibility. \u00a0All-in-all, a great time. \u00a0However, little did I know, the best was yet to come. On the way back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living-in-cayman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2280"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3564,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280\/revisions\/3564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}