Must do in Hawaii: Night Time Snorkel with Manta Rays

On our last trip to the Big Island, we were super excited as we just found out about Big Island Divers and their late-night snorkel or diving with the manta rays. Who in their right minds would get on a boat in the middle of the night to snorkel with creatures that are 3 times their size? Of course, we would! What we experienced was nothing short of awe-inspiring. After all, it is one of the top 10 aquatic adventures in the world. You can read more about these awesome creatures here. Also, check out the Big Island Divers’ website for more info on different adventures that they offer.

STATS:

Where:
Big Island Divers main office: 74-5467 Kaiwi St, Kailua, HI 96740
Boat Slip:  19°40’8.24″N 156° 1’29.32″W

Parking: There is a large parking lot at right at the boat slip.

Restroom: There are restrooms near the ramp to the boat

Level: we found that it’s easy for snorkelers. However, you must know how to swim, have snorkeling experience, and understand and speak English for safety reasons.

Estimated Completion Time: 2 – 3 hours

Ideal Weather: calmer seas will make the boat ride and snorkel with manta rays much more enjoyable.

Ideal Time: the late night, 9 pm start time to snorkel with manta rays is the best in our opinion. We will explain why later on.

ABOUT THE COMPANY:

Before we book any excursions on any of our trips, we usually do extensive research on the company. We want to make sure that not only they have great reviews, but they are also ethically and environmentally-conscious. That is one of the many reasons why we decided on Big Island Divers for our late night snorkel with manta rays. Here are a few more:

1. They are the only company that offers the late-night tour that starts at 9 pm Hawaii time. This time slot, in our opinions, is the best time to snorkel with the manta rays. Your boat will be the only one out in the water. Therefore, all the rays won’t get distracted by other lights from other boats. You will have a much better encounter with them. It is also much less crowded, therefore, less stress and more room for you to move around.

2. Big Island Divers has extremely high ratings everywhere you look. They have 5 stars on TripAdvisor, 4.5 stars on Yelp and a perfect 10 score from us.

3. They have been certified for their conservation efforts and for their care and safe practices with the rays. Big Island Divers is green listed with Hawaiioceanwatch.org. This is very important. It is unlawful to hunt or kill manta rays, but there is no protection from harm (collisions, harassment, entanglement). Being on the green list means that Big Island Divers is actively taking steps to protect the manta rays and other wildlife. You can check out the criteria to be considered for the green list here.

THE ADVENTURE:

We got to the dock around 8:30 pm, half an hour before our call time. It was a bit difficult trying to find the boat ramp in the dark. You can use the coordinates above to take you straight to the boat slip or look for “BID Honu Iki”. There should be a big sign in front of it for “Big Island Divers”. We were there a bit early but we were super excited to snorkel with manta rays, so we headed down the ramp to wait.

There were a few people already waiting at the table down the ramp. Shortly after we sat down, we hear the sounds of applause and excited voices coming from the waterway on our left. Our boat, the Kaha Nuola, came sailing around the corner full of people that had just got back from snorkel with manta rays. It slowly backed its way up to the dock and the crew rushed to tie her up like a bunch of energetic pirates.

At this point, our guide for the night, Alexis lept from the large boat to the pier and greeted us with a huge smile on her face. Her warm personality instantly put everyone at ease. After some bantering with our captain, Mikey B. about who would go over the safety guide, Alexis won the honor for the night. It was heartwarming watching their interactions. You felt like you were invited into the circle with some old friends.

With a laugh, Alexis dove right into a very informative presentation that was full of tidbits, puns, hilariously corny jokes, and pictures. In the middle of all of this, Mikey B. decided to work the crowd by throwing bags of fruit snacks from way up on the top of the boat where he steered.

We’ve learned so much about the manta rays from the short presentation. One of the comforting things is that even though manta rays have giant mouths, their throats are about the size of a dime. Therefore, they can’t swallow anything except for plankton and other microscopic organisms. It was definitely a relief knowing that we weren’t going to be a late night snack for the rays.

We also started to figure out that these weren’t just any random rays. Big Island Divers’ crew has names for all the rays. They are good buddies. The crews are able to tell the rays apart by their sizes, unique markings on their tummies and other noticeable features. They even had to rescue one ray named Koie, who had gotten fishing string wrapped around its cephalic fins. Unfortunately, the string had cut into the ray. The wound became so infected they had no choice but to capture the ray and amputate the scoop. Alexis said that their friendship was strained for a little bit, but they eventually made up.

Just as Alexis finished up her presentation, we saw Mikey B. making his way up on the dock with a gigantic smile on his face. He was carrying a cute little tray that had a pineapple jack-o-lantern and two hollowed out pineapple bowls that are filled with sweet pineapple chunks. We felt very special indeed. After snacking on some absolutely delicious Hawaiian pineapple, we boarded the boat, ready for our snorkel with manta rays. A couple more silly boat puns from Alexis, and we were underway.

You can tell that at Big Island Divers, they love the manta rays just about as much as they love their jobs. Both Mikey B. and Alexis were extremely funny and more than happy to answer our questions about the massive sea creatures. Alexis has been guiding tours for 3 years. Mikey B. has been manning the steering wheel for over 10 years.

As soon as we left the harbor, the boat’s interior lights switched from white to red so that we didn’t attract the mantas too early. It is about a 20-minute boat ride to the snorkeling spot. They turned off all the lights for most of the ride so that we could enjoy the stars as well as preventing the manta rays to swim into us. Even though there was a fair amount of clouds in the sky that night, we lucked out with the weather. The rain held off until we got back to our car.

Soon, the boat started to slow down. Both of us hastily put on our provided wetsuits as we realized we were almost there. We then made our way outside to the railing. In the distance, you can see something that looked straight out of a sci-fi movie. There was a circle that was probably 25 feet across, pulsing a hypnotic blue light in the middle of the pitch black sea. They call this light “the campfire”. As we were staring into the blue light, Alexis popped up out of the dark water. Apparently, she dove from the front of the boat without us noticing to add in a few more campfires.

We were both curious about why the blue light was pulsing. When we asked Alexis, she informed us that the light was pulsing because the gigantic manta rays were swimming over the light and covering it completely. The light was pulsing constantly, meaning we had quite a gathering of the rays. Big Island Divers leave the light on in between tours to keep the plankton and rays entertained so hopefully, they will stick around. The manta rays, however, are free to come and go as they please. Therefore, there are no guarantees that every tour will be as busy as ours.

Once we stopped, Alexis yelled out to Mikey B. asking him to hand her the “Megatron”. I was unaware that we were on a boat with Transformers. Megatron is actually their nickname for the big surfboard that everyone will be holding on to while they are in the water. The board has two circular pockets on the bottom where they mount two very right lights into. The light attracts the plankton and the plankton attracts the mantas. There are handles all around the edge of the board. This is where you will be holding on to as you float and watch the rays.

You could feel the energy as Alexis made her way to the back of the boat to set Megatron into the water. Big Island Divers uses the board so they don’t attract the rays toward the boat. It also keeps all of the snorkelers in one place to make sure the safety of not only the people but also the beautiful manta rays. Some companies used to use the boat, but the rays were injuring themselves on the boat propellers.

Disclaimer: You should have some swimming and snorkeling experience before attempting this adventure. The ocean in the middle of the night is not the ideal place to learn. You don’t want to put yourself and your guides in danger.

Even though we were using Big Island Divers wetsuits, we brought our own flippers and full-face masks. Vy also brought her flotation belt. We haven’t mentioned this in previous articles, but Vy isn’t a very strong swimmer. The flotation belt allows her to be safer and more comfortable in the water. That’s why I was so proud of her when she was one of the first people to rush to the back of the boat and throw herself into the black abyss. I hurried to get in after her, but she was doing just fine. Megatron was floating about 15 feet away from the boat so it wasn’t a hard swim at all. I was worried that the water would be cold at night, but the wetsuits made it very pleasant.

Once we grabbed onto the handles, we were floating on black still water. Suddenly, we heard a muffled voice shouted “Here they come!” From out of the darkness, we could see a large shape moving slowly in our direction. As the large shape got closer to Megatron’s light beam, the massive manta ray began to take shape. It was their old friend, Koie. Koie was the largest ray we encountered that night with a wingspan around 14-15 ft.

The interesting thing about manta rays is that they do backflips when they eat sometimes. So as Koie swooped along the ocean floor, she slowly began to tip back and swim directly towards us. Right when we thought that Koie was going to hit us, he flipped over just a few feet below us and swam back down. Even though we knew that manta rays couldn’t swallow us, it was still intimidating seeing this gigantic fish swimming straight at you with wide-open mouth. You can see almost all the way through their insides when looking down into that open mouths.

It was wild because even though the manta rays’ backs are almost black, their bellies are bright white. Whenever they did a flip, they would expose their undersides to Megatron’s powerful lights and reflected the lights back to us. You could see in our video that the light came off of the rays was almost too much for the GoPro to handle. It also radiated up to the surface and lit up the ocean.

Besides Koie, three smaller rays also decided to join us. When we say small, we’re still talking about 9-10 ft rays. One of them was Mighty Q, known for the marking in shape of the letter W on his belly. The other two were Lafferty and Akari. The rays weren’t the only sea life awake at that hour. We were also joined by a school of fish that seemed to be enjoying the plankton as well. But you better believe that every time one of the gargantuan rays came through, those fish got the heck out of the way.

At one point, we had all four manta rays directly below us. Some of the rays seemed to stay in one place and did the same backflip over and over. Other ones did a series of flips as they swam closer and closer to us. Sometimes, they came right within reach. However, you aren’t allowed to touch the mantas. The oil in our skin actually harms these gentle giants. So please don’t touch them despite how much you want to. Also, keep your fins up as you snorkel to keep them from injuring the rays.

These manta rays are extremely majestic and graceful. It was quite mesmerizing watching them elegantly gliding through the dark ocean. However, it was quite funny to watch them crashing head-on into each other every once in a while when their timings were off. Then, they turned from ballerinas into a couple of drunk guys at a rock concert. It didn’t seem to bother them one bit though. They just brushed it off and set up for another backflip attempt.

After about 30 minutes, Alexis asked if we were interested in moving to the Campsite. This was the deeper spot where they left the campfire to keep the rays attracted. The second spot was a completely different experience. At the first spot, it was quite a bit more shallow. Therefore, you can see more of the ocean’s floor with Megatron’s lights. The second spot, however, was a lot deeper. The lights seemed to just shine off into the distance, leaving us in a much darker place. At this darker spot, the rays seemed to appear almost out of nowhere. It was crazy how you could be staring into the darkness, when all of a sudden, an upside-down 14 ft manta ray magically appeared less than a foot from you. Luckily by this point, we were on good terms and knew that they didn’t mean any harm.

The 45 minutes in the water seemed to fly by in a flash. We could have floated out there for hours just to watch the manta ray. We made our way back to the boat. As soon as everyone got back on the boat, something awesome happened. Two of the giant rays came up to the surface. It was almost like they were saying bye.

We took our seats inside the boat and began the journey home. As we pulled back into the harbor, Alexis had one more trick up her sleeves. She popped one of the lights off of Megatron and pointed it into the water of the harbor. All of a sudden, a school of fish began to launch themselves from the water. She said that the light startled them. We had never seen anything quite like that before. They looked like flying fish.

Once we reached the dock, it was, unfortunately, time for our amazing adventure to come to an end. Finally, the sky couldn’t hold back any longer and it started to rain. We were just grateful that the bad weather held off as long as it did. Everyone from Big Island Divers could not have been nicer. We definitely plan to go back and take the tour again, maybe scuba diving this time. I think it is safe to say that snorkel with manta rays is an experience that Vy and I will never forget.

Don’t forget to check out our list for 10 things to do on Big Island for more awesome activities to do. If you still up for some snorkeling adventure, check out Two Step Beach for clear water and beautiful reef. If you are heading over Hilo, don’t forget to check out Kaumana Caves as well. We would like to have a special shout out to Martina and the Manta Advocates Hawaii for helping us with pictures and tons of info on the manta rays. Go check them out as they are the place to “Discover the beauty of manta rays”

Happy Adventuring. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, subscribe to our Youtube channel, and sign up for our newsletter!

RECOMMEND GEAR:

Don’t forget to check out our Recommended Gear section as well.

•  Sunscreen:
You won’t need it for the night time adventures but will need it if you go earlier in the day. Make sure to use eco-friendly, reef safe sunscreen to protect our reef and marine wildlife. We use Alba Botanica Hawaiian Sunscreen or Sun Bum Sunscreen.

•  Snorkel mask
They do supply masks on the tour but we like our full face masks. We used WildHorn Outfitters Seaview 180 Degree Panoramic Snorkel Mask.

• Fins
Again, they will supply all your snorkel gears. However, we brought our own. These are the ones we used, U.S. Divers Trek Fin – Compact Snorkel Fins and U.S. Divers Proflex FX Fin.

•  Towels and jackets
Even when the weather is warmer, the windchill by being on a boat at night is unavoidable. Make sure to bring a nice jacket, especially if you get cold easily.

•  Motion sickness medicine
Recommended if you have a weak stomach.

•  Flotation belt
If you’re not a very good swimmer, a flotation belt will help you be more comfortable in the water. Vy uses these every time she goes snorkel.
CAMERA GEAR:
•  Camera:
   Sony a7 III
   Gopro Hero 7 Black

•  Lenses:
   Sony 24 -70mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar T Zoom Lens    

   Sony 18 – 250mm f/3.5-6.3 High Magnification Zoom Lens

•  Accessories:
   Bobber – Floating Hand Grip for GoPro HERO Cameras 

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