Manta Beach

This was our last day of diving on Cocos. And it was to be very special. The seas were quite choppy, with a strong wind blowing and a swell running. Dieter was determined to look after us and headed out of the lagoon and down the West side of West Island. On the way we say turtles in the water. We stopped to watch them procreate. Having found safe anchorage, Dieter told us that this site has a shallow shelf, then a drop off to 40m where there is a white sand 'beach' that goes out for about 40m meters before the bottom drops off to the depths. Mantas often come here so we were hopeful. Viz was not as good as we had enjoyed (only 25m) for which Dieter apologised. As this was our last say Deiter gave Aaron yellow boardies to war, Daniella a wig and wore a captain's hat throughout the dive. We headed out over the 'beach' and managed to see 3 Mantas away in the gloom. Having no more success we headed back to the shallower waters where the corals and fish were just as wonderful as we had come to expect from Cocos. Towards the end of the dive we headed back over the edge and WOW! there were Mantas. Daniella and I dropped as deep as we could (I was quite mindful of my deco limit) and got several nice shots of the Manta from 33m depth.