Page 12 - Fiji Traveller Issue 4

DIVING WITH

MANTAS

Photo: Tourism Fiji By Anirban Mahapatra

After almost an hour of navigating through lagoons flanking the sea anywhere along the reef. But for skippers navigating the
southern coastline of Kadavu island, the dive boat finally reaches local waters, there’s an intangible set of coordinates that mark
a rocky channel that provides a way out of the submerged the spot where the magic happens. Someone, sometime in the
mountain walls of the Great Astrolabe Reef. As it cautiously steers past, casually referred to it as Manta Point, and the name stuck.
around barnacled boulders strong enough to breach battleships, The day is rather balmy for the time of year, neither too warm,
the colour of the water below the boat changes gradually from nor too cold. A southwesterly wind has suddenly picked up to
ultramarine to sapphire, before suddenly losing its luminescence ruffle the stillness of the water with gentle waves, and the tide
to turn a sombre shade of deep blue. For anyone who has been is beginning to turn. For divers out to spot megafauna in these
out on boats long enough to read the colour of water, it’s an remote waters, the conditions are apparently a rare yet favourable
indication of venturing past the safety of the shallows into the alignment of nature’s unpredictable vagaries. "I have a strong
bottomless void of the great marine unknown. feeling you will find what you came for" says my dive guide,
There is no buoy or mooring line marking the dive site here. peering over the keel to inspect the water with his experienced
To the untrained eye, this place could just be another patch of gaze. "We have not had conditions like these in over a month.

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