Before swimming with the manta rays on the Big Island of Hawaii, Joel and I are enjoying a multi-colored sunset from the deck of a boat which just dropped anchor a short distance from shore. Pretty ideal, huh? Well, read on…

Those paint-brushed strokes of color above us are smearing into each other, making that canvas above us black with punctuation marks of stars and a blotch of moon. The waters are getting colder. They spread a heavy cover, and everything underneath becomes suddenly mysterious. The crew is shining lights to attract sea plankton, inviting manta rays to their big feast. (The mantas love the sea plankton, which they feed upon practically 24/7. Mantas are called filtered fish (not gefilte fish) because they scoop up water and filter out all the plankton.

We jump into the cold and black wetness. We are not alone. Creatures swarm around us, skimming our skin and circling around to approach us with jaws wide enough to accommodate a bathtub. This is supposed to be a a 40 minute activity, but after 8 minutes Joel and I are more than ready for warmth and dry, and we search for the promised ladder to the vessel above.