I’ve gotten a surprising amount of mail on this.  Neat.  Days later, I’m still thinking about these giant yet gentle and nearly-defenseless beasts.

I should say, rather, that they’re defenseless as far as I can tell.  No sign of fangs or claws or exoskeleton or stinging tail.  No spitting of poison, no toxic breath, no electic zappy ability.  In fact, merely touching them will cause injury.  (This is another way in which swimming with mantas resembles a lap dance: eyes good, hands bad.)  But then, mantas can weigh roughly a ton.  So maybe if you really tick them off they can gang-squish you or something.  But I doubt it.

One letter was from the director of the Manta Pacific Research Foundation, a research and conservation group working to study and protect the giant manta rays.  They’re also working to make it illegal to intentionally harm or kill manta rays in Hawaiian waters, and they’ve even got a petition you can sign if you want to help them show the government there’s real public support for getting mantas some protection.  I’d like to thank her and her group right here for her letter and their good work, which I encourage you to support.

Their site also has a little write-up of how mantas wound up hanging out in Kona, and even a set of thumbnails of the 100 or so male and female mantas who have so far been identified as enjoying the local chow.  There were two mantas in the water when I went; one of them spent most of its time near the surface and gave me the full-body loop easily more than a dozen times.  I’m pretty sure I recognize Weniki as the manta I spent large chunks of an hour with.

Meanwhile, these are the folks I went to sea with.  There are other companies which do similar stuff, but I can’t imagine it could be easier, friendlier, or more convenient.  The link also leads to a short Quicktime movie which gives you some sense of what being in the water with mantas is like.