More Diving, Nusa Penida

Due to Jess being ill, we decided to extend our stay by a couple of days, giving us a chance to do some more diving. It had been 8 weeks since our diving course in Koh Tao, and after hearing about the high chances of seeing manta rays at Manta Point, we couldn’t miss the opportunity.

Arriving at the diving centre at 7.30am we met our dive guide Katy. There were two other groups but it turned out it was just the three of us in our group which was nice. First stop Manta Point, specifically for diving and not to be confused with Manta Bay, an area for snorkelling. Hearing this was a very common place to see manta rays we were very excited. Thankfully we hadn’t forgotten our training as gearing up came to us like second nature.

We descended under water and swam to the first ‘cleaning station’ where mantas are regularly seen. It’s known as a cleaning station as this is where mantas come to be cleaned by fish. Unfortunately no Mantas. We were told if we couldn't find any there, we would swim to the other cleaning station. We still didn't see any at the second station and at this point our hopes dropped a little, gutted by the fact they'd apparently been spotted here only yesterday.

Dan looked down at his air gauge and just as he looked up, right in front of him was a huge manta ray swimming straight towards us! It really was a spectacle with its huge wingspan gliding so elegantly through the water. We weren't sure what to expect but it turned out these manta rays were huge, this one about 3m wide. It swam past us within a couple of metres and then disappeared off into the blue. Only 5 minutes later and we saw another black shadow in the distance. It was another ray, even bigger that the first, at 3.5m-4m wide, but unlike before this one decided to stay. For about 5 minutes we didn’t move but watched it swim around us in circles (at a safe distance of course), clearly intrigued. It moved slowly with its mouth wide open to feed, although Jess thought the manta ray was giving us a show. It was so mesmerising to watch and we were both absolutely over the moon to have seen these majestic creatures. These were reef mantas which can get up to 5m wide but there is another type of ray called the giant manta. Unbelievably, these can get up to 9m wide although these are a different species not found at this dive site. Unfortunately we were too deep for the GoPro so regrettably couldn’t film the rays which was a shame. Nevertheless, this will be a memory that we'll never forget. To mark the occasion, a post manta ray sighting selfie was a must!

Back on the boat, we travelled to our second and final diving spot, Crystal Bay. The name says it all - crystal clear water with the most amazing colourful coral reefs. Down at depth we saw a huge range of brightly coloured marine life including all sorts tropical fish, mantis shrimps, puffer fish, trumpet fish and a sea turtle. You can see Mola Mola here however we weren't lucky enough to see those too. It was great to log another couple of dives and we’ve both agreed we’ll be on the look out for diving opportunities on future holidays.

After a successful morning we freshened up and rode to a beach club to relax for the afternoon. Here we enjoyed fresh coconuts by an infinity pool looking out over the ocean before finally riding back to Angel Billabong and Broken Beach to watch the sunset again.Read more