Manta Touring

This morning I did what is called "Manta Touring." Not, unfortunately, to see Manta Rays - they are uncommon in this area. Manta Touring is just the name they've given to this activity. Basically you get pulled around by a boat with your face in the water. Sort of like water skiing, except you start with your face in the water rather than end up there. The idea being that you can cover a lot of ground (err, water) and also keep up with some of the faster critters.

Setting up.

We were inspired to do it today because of the near glass-calm water. There's a newly formed tropical storm named Danny in the Atlantic (about 200 miles East of us), and from what I can tell from the satellite images, the southern end of it is countering the wind we normally get. We're expecting that to change as the storm moves over the Bahamas.

Touring

Anyhow, Manta Touring was fun. We didn't see as much as we hoped - really just a couple large Triggerfish (one Queen Triggerfish and one Ocean Triggerfish), and a few Barracudas that curiously (and ominously) come up to check you out. Because of that I felt a little bit like bait. As if I was being pulled around to lure some large creature up from the deep. This was especially the case when we went out over "The Blue" - the area where it's so deep you can see nothing but a deep blue color.

"The Blue"