Saturday 9th October 2021

Today was a last minute decision to dive as I got a call last night asking to make up numbers on a boat. I decided therefore not to take the RED Camera and just take a Go Pro. I had heard the visibility was also down and it was easier than rushing to get everything ready for a day trip over to Stradbroke.

Topside conditions really nice, minimal wind and swell. Visibility was a milky ten metres but there was no current in the water so it was really lazy diving.

Mark and I decided to do a long dive being on twin tanks for Sidemount.

We were in our 6/7mm as the water temperature was surprisingly still pretty cold and Ken had mentioned it was a chilly 19 degrees at nearby Flat Rock. Im glad I wore my winter suit as it was cold and I was pretty comfortable underwater.

There were about 4 -5 different Manta Rays on the dive site, we headed over to the sandy gutter and saw several Guitar sharks resting on the sand. They were pretty easy to approach as there was no current like I said.

I saw 2 Reticulate Whip Rays which was incredible as they are not very common to see and I think they are one of the more beautiful Rays. I was able to get pretty close to them on both occasions.

There was a huge fairly friendly Loggerhead turtle, maybe the largest one I’ve seen swimming from the surface down to visit the divers. Interestingly I didn’t see any other turtles which was unusual as typically there are many Green turtles on the dive site.

We had a great encounter with a big beautiful female Manta Ray with large Remora hugging its belly tightly. Mark got into the money shot position by a Bommie as it circled and came towards him and I was in another position for the belly shot so we enjoyed some time with this one.

There was a Manta Train of 3 Mantas coming in and out of visibility. Having just filmed >20 courting Manta Rays recently in North QLD and having researched Manta courting and mating behaviour, I had a feeling we may also see mating today.
The Manta train of 3 had dropped 1 off and there were now 2 Mantas swimming closely together across the dive site. The male swimming with a lot more intention than usual. I therefore knew there was a good opportunity to film the mating (which has only been filmed 3 times in the wild) and so made it a priority to stick with the two Mantas as much as possible.

I had returned to the boat after a 2 hour dive thinking everyone by now was probably waiting for me, however when I approached realised the others were only going in for their second dive having had a surface interval. I spoke to Ken and Mark on the surface and mentioned I would therefore finish my remaining gas as still had 100 bar.

As I went to descend again and happened to be by complete chance looking into the blue away from the dive site I saw the two Manta Rays heading up through mid water parallel to one another, bellies presented to mate.
I only had the Go Pro with me and due to the lag of start up and record (which seems to take about 5 seconds) I missed the actual moment on camera only getting the seconds leading from the event as it happened very fast.

I saw the same Manta Rays displaying the same behaviour again on the Western side but disappeared into the edge of visibility which was only a good 10 metres and somewhat milky!

I did count myself pretty lucky that I got to witness the behaviour at all as the divers that had just descended the first time had missed it and Ken and Mark had seen it from the surface with them flapping on top of the water to do the deed.

To view the videos of the Manta train and glimpses of Mating behaviour which Ive included for scientific purposes for Project Manta.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/627398736

Belly shots of the two Mating Mantas

Total dive time 158 minutes average depth 13 metres.