These gentle giants move slow and steady through the water with a maximum speed of only 5 km/h. The largest documented whale shark measured 12.18 meters. The biggest fish in the sea, these sharks live in all tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world’s oceans. Even Jacques Cousteau saw only two in the first 20 years of his expeditions. Your Dive With the Whale SharkĪ little luck and a lot of advanced planning is the only way to dive with a whale shark, as seeing these big plankton-eaters is rare. You can see them soaring over reefs as they feed or when they stop to visit cleaning stations, where you can observe several mantas at a time practicing their personal hygiene. Mantas are known to come close to reefs when they are foraging. Most of these rays swim near the surface, preferring a depth between 0 and 30 meters where their food of choice, plankton, is most abundant. They prefer to stay close to the coast you will rarely meet a manta far out over deep water. Mantas live in temperate, tropical, and subtropical ocean waters. On the contrary, these “devil rays” are now a favorite among divers. Fortunately, today the myth of the manta as a monster has been refuted. National Geographic even published a hair-raising report in 1919 describing a manta that was said to have wrapped a boat’s anchor chain around it to pull the ship out to the open sea. Ancient societies felt these large, dark, mysterious ocean-dwellers could only manifest from a place of anger. Your Dive With the Manta Rayįor many years, the manta was considered a sea monster. Here you can find out which animals you should go diving with and where you can find them.

Dive with the most fascinating animals under water.

Tales by light ocean manta ray