Yep, while diving in Palau we saw sharks, turtles AND manta rays.
We dove twice at the German Channel, which is a manta ray cleaning station, and we spotted HUGE manta rays on our dives!
The pictures do not do it justice, but the one in the last few pictures was at least 3 to 4 meters long (the people in the shot were a good 10 feet or more closer to me than the manta ray).
Here are some of the shots…
I know the manta ray doesn’t look so big compared to Karl – but compare his color to the manta’s – can you tell he was about 10-15 feet closer to me than the manta ray is (which was much deeper than us?).
To have an idea of its sheer size, that coral underneath it in the picture below is where we had been waiting for a long time, before we started to run out of air (yes, it showed up right as we moved on to start ascending). There were about 7 of us waiting in one side of that coral – 7 people!
oh they are so mysterious. i feel like they each have their own crazy personalities.
They must have their own personalities! A friend of mine used to work with them in the north of Brazil (she’s a marine biologist), and I was always jealous of her pictures!
That’s insane!! They’re so huge. These photos are truly incredible! Have you done a post on what equipment you use while under water for your photos/videos? I’d love to know!
Believe it or not I use a simple point and shoot for all my pictures/videos, but it does a GREAT job with the pictures, doesn’t it? It takes amazing shots of a city skyline too, something I always had problems with (my poor SLR hasn’t left my house in months…). I briefly wrote about it here: https://carlarunstheworld.com/2011/08/23/new-camera/ The huge camera case I only use for diving.