This is a photo of a Manta that I took at Gun Beach on the West Coast of Guam. I was teaching Scuba Diving to a large group of Japanese students when all of the sudden two Manta Rays started circling our group. They seemed to appeared out of nowhere! I had the divers kneeling in a circle on the bottom at about 30 feet.
I had never seen Mantas in the wild before and I was completely captivated. I had a small underwater camera that my parents-in-law had given me for my birthday and set off to get a photo. I made sure that the other dive instructors had control of the students and off I went. The mantas just kept circling the group.
I started swimming along with the circling mantas, snapping photos when I got a good shot. All of the sudden the Manta that I was the closest to, slowed down as if inviting my approach. My forward momentum took me closer than I cared to be. Especially because the Manta turned and flashed its belly at me. A shot of fear shot through me as I remembered that Sting Rays had a barb that could be deadly. Remember that I was new enough to the marine world that I didn't know that Mantas were docile and harmless. I immediately started to back-peddle so-to-speak, pushing water toward the Manta with my hands and fins to escape from the white belly and tail that had been flared in my face. I'm sure that it was quite humorous to watch my antics. The Manta took off on his circling path around the group of dive students and then as fast as they appeared, they disappeared off into the blue sea. When my heart beat slowed, I returned to the amazed students who still were kneeling on the bottom with eyes as big as saucers. What a cool experience! But I was a little embarrassed when I inquired and found out that Mantas are absolutely harmless.
There are a lot of Mantas south of Guam in the Yap Islands. I had dove in Ulithi Atoll but did not see any Mantas during my dives. Dive masters in Yap have a unique way of feeding the Mantas in Yap for the dive tourists. They spray Cheese Whiz in their hair and the Manta flies over the top of them and sucks the cheese out of their hair with their huge mouths. I bet that is a weird sensation, having a huge Manta sucking in on the top of your head.
On dive tours in Guam, we used to feed the Moray Eels at Hap's Reef. We fed them hot dog wieners. Franks wear probably not the healthiest thing to feed marine life but that was the practice at the time. The problem with feeding the Morays hot dogs was that hot dogs look like fingers and the Morays didn't differentiate. I would cut off a piece of wiener and stick it on the end of my knife and hold it out for the Moray. Sometimes you had to kind off coax the Moray out of its hole by waving the wiener close to the mouth of its hole. I would put my other hand flat on my chest rather than let it hang down somewhere where another Moray in another hole would come out and take a bite thinking that my finger was a wiener. I never got bit, but a friend of mine, Jeff Earl got bit from time to time. He would sometimes forget about his other hand.
When I could coax a Moray out of his hole, he would cautiously move out toward the wiener on the end of my knife. Then I could take my other hand and stroke the slimy body of the Moray.
