Stephane’s thoughts corner…

Stephane Bailliez's thoughts on everything

We were supposed to go to Maratua at the Nabucco resort today but we are finally staying to Sangalaki for various reasons. In the morning there were over a dozen groups of manta rays lining up to feed on planktons. As each group is about 10 individuals, do the maths: over a hundred mantas in one location ! Camera settings were again challenging due to the variation of weather conditions in a short time: cloudy with no sunshine, cloudy with sunshine, blue sky with sunshine, rain, … all that during an hour.
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Ron, Manager of Sangalaki Dive Lodge took us along with Ian (dive instructor) to the Blue Light Cave at Kakaban. He restricts this to experienced divers as this is a deep dive in pitch black conditions: no light at all and that it happens that some people discover that they suffer from claustrophobia in those conditions. So better be cautious here considering the depth. The entrance is a vertical shaft on top of the reef in about 50cm of water. There are 2 exits from this cave, one is apparently located at 44m, the other one is at 64m. I took the camera for this dive and literally forgot about it…despite that the housing is rated to 40m ! It worked without a hitch though and was able to take a picture at the exit point (looks like a gate). I wanted to take a shot without strobes but did not have time to do so. It is quite amazing as the exit looks like it is carved.
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Now that we are the only customers at the dive lodge, we can go back to longer bottom times. It does not change much when this is a manta dive as it is most of the time quite ‘physical’ when I have to follow them or going up and down, but it is nice when doing a shallow macro dive.
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Manta shots are starting to improve, but I’m still relatively unsatisfied. All shots are taken by intercepting the trajectory of an approaching manta on its side and slowly moving under their belly. Note that all this is generally done against a slight current, with the manta flying effortlessly while I’m sucking air by pushing the whole ocean with my Mares Quattro fins (highly not recommended for such things). I’m putting so much energy swimming, that it is a challenge to be able to shoot at the same time while trying to adjust settings depending on the sun position.
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I had a pleasant surprise today as there were quite a good number of mantas today, especially appreciated as a birthday present. This did not stop here, as the whole Sangalaki staff surprisingly came during the evening singing a happy birthday to me and Aima (Ron’s wife) offered me a birthday present as well. Thank you so much for the nice attention !
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