Mola Mola and Mantas

We recently had our perfect day's dive.  We were diving at a site about 40 minutes boat ride south from Nusa Lembongan island, called Crystal Bay. It is off the coast of Nusa Penida, a sloping reef wall into a very deep channel (180 metres) through which currents gush southwards from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. We dived to about 20m and hung around looking into the blue. Even in our 5mm thick dive suit we could feel the thermoclines of the mixing warmer and cold water, which created an oil-like haze under the water at times.

Due to the unique underwater landscape Crystal Bay is famed for Mola Mola (or Ocean Sunfish) sightings as these bony fish come up from the depths to the sloping wall to be cleaned of parasites by reef fish.

It was our third and final trip to Crystal Bay. After 40 minutes we'd still not seen a Mola Mola so I was giving myself a pep talk to not be too disappointed when suddenly, literally right out of the deep blue, a shadow of one became apparent.

We quickly swam closer to get a better look, being sure not to get too close to scare it away. It was over 3 metres from fin tip to fin tip and silver in colour, although some can be more brown or grey. It looked quite smooth apart from two large but not deep, scratches on its top (possibly caused by a boat propeller).

In relation to its large disc shaped body, it had a tiny, pursed mouth. It's round eyes also looked rather small and seemed to be bulging so much that they were almost popping out of its head. This gave it a rather surprised look. Its irises were like a shark's. It is not related to the shark family though, as they have cartilaginous skeletons, as do manta rays. The Mola Mola however, has a bony skeleton, in fact it is the largest bony fish in the whole world.

As we watched, it occasionally gently moved it's large fins, and at times its lower fin dragged on the reef bed. We saw three different types of reef fish tending to the Mola Mola, the emperor angel fish focused on the tail area, the cleaner wrasse on the gills, and the banner fish around the eye socket.

I watched this giant of the oceans intently thinking “where has it been, what depths has it sunk to and what did it see there? What does it think?”.

It was a sight that will be forever engraved onto our memory and we are so fortunate to have seen this unique animal.

Unfortunately we have no photos from this dive sorry, but these picture from the internet give you an idea of what we experienced.

Back at the surface we sat on our small boat beaming from ear to ear, satisfied and elated. It was only 8.30am and other dive boats were coming to the site, but we’d beaten the crowds and it had paid off.

After a rest and some breakfast allowing time for the nitrogen levels in our bodies to reduce we set off round the corner to Manta Bay. It is a popular spot to see manta rays feeding. Conditions were perfect, good light, ok visibility but lots of plankton in the water – perfect for attracting hungry mantas.

As we entered the shallow bay are guide Geidi started squealing with delight, “look there…and there….a fin… they’re everywhere”. The water literally boiled with mantas. We spotted a group from the surface as they whirled and swept through the water. We had read that manta rays only form such groups whilst feeding and mostly live a solitary life.

We entered the water and in seconds were surrounded by mantas filtering the seawater to extract their breakfast, they gracefully glided around, above and below us, up to six at a time. For 15 minutes we were treated to a fantastic feeding spectacle with the largest manta (all reef species), over 4 metres across glided effortlessly in rings around and above us a metre or two from our faces! It was amazing to see these elegant creatures up close. They really did seem to fly underwater, the condor of the ocean.

Back on the boat it wasn’t even 10.30am. The best morning’s diving - ever! We will never forget these lucky encounters with these large oceanic strangers.

Many thanks to our guide Geidi and World Divers, Lembongan for a fantastic experience.