Get amazed by the Kona Manta Ray night dive
| Name divesite: | Kona Manta Ray Night Dive |
| Depth: | 5-20m (16-65ft) |
| Visibility: | 1-10m (3-32ft) |
| Accessibility: | Boat |
| Time to visit: | All year around |
| Specifications: | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Most tours will offer this experience as a day package, including two dives. This dive site, which is officially often referred to as Garden Eel Cove, is full of marine life. But we are here for the mantas of course.
The crew will start this dive. They place lights on the ocean floor aiming upwards.
Plankton is attracted by this light and the plankton will attract the Mantas. As thick clouds of these microscopic animals enjoy the lights, manta rays come to feed. Not only plankton but also thousands of minuscule shrimp-like organisms are attracted to the light as shrimp, lobsters, crabs, and eels that can be found out hunting.
With your own light you will dive down, sitting all in circles next to the lights, waiting for the mantas to swim over your head. The dive is not more than this. Sitting there, so actually not diving at all, and enjoying this big fiest of the Manta Rays. Seeing how they swallow all that plankton and how they swim gracefully around us. Some tour operators take a short dive to search for Eels hunting.
Mantas use their large pectoral fins or 'wings' to move through the water when feeding. The cephalic fins or 'horns' direct the flow into its mouth and water passes through the gills. There they have fine hair, filtering out tiny plankton and other microscopic food. Allthough they are huge, they have never been seen attacking divers. So diving with these huge annimals is one of the safest dives you can do.
Send us your images for this dive site
Reader Reviews:
Would you like to comment on this dive site?
Want to add a new dive site in group 'Kona'?
Editor: Lars Hemel Have fun breathing underwater, but breathing above water is even more important!
Enjoy diving? Good in languages? Living in a diving paradise? Would you like to be an editor of your favourite region? Email us at






Excellent
Good
Average
Poor
Very poor