In February, Damien and Craig headed off with a bunch of eager divers to Stradbroke Island in pursuit of the gentle giant, the manta ray. The Weather Gods were nice to us, with clear blue skies (it only rained at night,) flat seas, and relatively no wind. Unfortunately The Weather Gods and The Visibility Gods weren’t seeing eye-to-eye because while there is no doubt in my mind that the mantas there, the only thing we could see at Manta Bommie was the ends of our fins. With all the recent rain from the preceding weeks, Manta Bommie was a complete wash out so we only did the first dive at the site, before moving across to Flat Rock for the next dive. We were amazed at how two dive sites, relatively close together could present such different conditions. At one end, it was soup, and the other was like glass. Needless to say we spent the remaining 5 dives around Flat Rock with 25m+ of visibility and conditions couldn't have been better.
There was plenty to see, with leopard sharks swimming around, octopi mating, turtles as always, and dolphins swimming by while we were doing our safety stop. Of course, before you ask, we did get photos.
Manta Lodge put on a great feast for us all on the Saturday night, and we also received an excellent and informative presentation from the great staff of Project Manta. We’re sad to report that the only mantas we saw this weekend were on the photos from the presentation of Project Manta and Biddy. Overall, a great trip was had by all, I got to spend some time with some great divers, and I traded my manta-card for a dolphin-card, which I didn’t quite mind.
