Tuesday 23 December – looking for Mantas

Rowan had booked a boat to take us to the best place to see Mantas about 40 minutes away, called Manta Sandy. We had tried to anchor there shortly after arriving in Raja Ampat, we gave up very quickly as the racing current was terrifying the way it was swirling us about. The boatRowan sorted arrived at 8am with two guys, luckily the youngster could speak a little English. Turned out they needed to go to the little village near Manta Sandy, called Arborek, to pick up a phone and to pick up a few other undisclosed things. I wanted to walk around the village anyway as it looks a busy little set up on a tiny island, with a lot of Diving Homestays. It was very neat and organised, definitely catering for tourists. We then went out to look for the manta rays, the first spot was disappointing with a fair current. We asked if we could go else where, he told us it is a dangerous current where the Manta’s were hanging out, were we prepared to risk it. Of course there was a resounding Yes! We went out into the middle of the channel crossed over the bouncing waves of the current and got in the other side when we spotted some Manta fins. Oh my it was incredible, no matter how hard I swam I was rushing backwards, I could not keep up and decided to head back to the boat. Poor Rowan had to take me. The rest all saw 3 Mantas swimming away. Then they all came back to the boat and no sooner was everyone in the boat when we spotted about 7 Mantas. Everyone went back in and had a wonderful sighting, I enjoyed seeing them from the boat. I’m happy to have swum with them in Bora Bora. It was wonderful that it all worked out, everyone was thrilled.

We headed to the other side of the island to go and snorkel at the jetty at Sauwandarek village. There were a lot of Phinisi dive boats in the bay, but it is too deep for yachts. We had a great snorkel and then had a picnic lunch at the beach – cheese biscuits and guacamole. On the way back to PolePole we stopped off at a big white sand bar in the sea and took loads of family photos. Back to the boat, Luke and Milly were on supper duty, steaks on the BBQ, Milly made a delicious potato dauphinoise. Scrummiest meal in a while.