![]() I had snorkeled with rays before and just kind of floated over them a few feet away. It was an experience that I did not anticipate. Every now and again one would misjudged its path and bump into us … belly to belly. Then more came in, feeding in the same circular motion, rising up and turning upside down like a loop-the-loop of a roller coaster while passing directly in front of our faces. The first ray came in to feed with its massive mouth open and turned upside down as it approached the surface in a circular trajectory, coming within an inch - literally - of brushing the bellies of the us gawking tourists. We were told that the manta rays would come up close to us, but we weren’t told exactly how close. The center of the floating contraption was lined with lights which illuminated the depths below, attracting plankton which in turn attracted hungry manta rays. No, we would all grab onto these 20′ long floating long-rectangle shaped contraptions and have our feet suspended out with pool noodles so that we would be completely flat on the water’s surface facing down, collectively looking like spokes on a wheel. We wouldn’t just backflip out of the boat and swim around. It was then that it became apparent that this wasn’t a normal snorkeling tour. The catamaran engine was revved and it bobbled out into the bay approximately the distance of a football field or two, anchoring right in front of the hotel, basking in its lights. The lights attract plankton and the plankton attracts the rays. ![]() “Manta rays,” he exclaimed when he returned. Nobody knew what they were until some dude decided to snorkel out to find out. At some point they began noticing these big shadowy sea creatures that would keep coming up to the surface. There’s this big hotel here that, as a point of style, shines big flood lights into the bay. ![]() How this tour came about is kind of interesting. We went to the front of the boat away from the other passengers and tried to pretend otherwise. Her inner voice seemed to be saying the same thing. I looked over at my 13-year-old daughter Petra. I knew right away that the way in which that catamaran was undulating in those waves that I was in trouble. ![]() “Wade the seasick sailor,” is what a friend from back home used to call me. It is an extreme and lifelong embarrassment but I get sea sick. It didn’t take very long before I heard my inner voice say … oh shit. We yanked on our suits while a giant catamaran wobbled up to the dock and then waddled down the boardwalk and gingerly hopped into the boat. Their only instructions being not to pee in them. As she went down the list of names each party was sent over to the van so we could be sized for a wetsuit. Eventually, the rear doors flew open on a van and someone popped out with a clipboard who welcomed us to the tour. We joined them, slapped some clueless looks on our faces, and waited for something to happen. A group of clueless looking people were loosely gathered together in the parking lot and we knew we found our crew. We showed up at night at a hotel around a ten minute drive out of town. I thought we would all be in the water swimming around looking for rays. She came up with a tour where we would all go out on a boat at night and snorkel with manta rays. It was my 42nd birthday, we were in Kona, and my wife wanted to plan something for me that I would remember. A lack of know-how was never a very good reason to take a tour for me but a lack of gear, well, that was something that I’ve found to be an adequate reason to buy a ticket and join the duckling row. The prime directive of travel is to live life your way, and if you’re not doing that because you’ve enslaved yourself with some kind of identity … well, you lost the plot.īut I also know that every once in a while there are things that are describable with words like fantastic, incredible, and even awesome that you simply cannot do on your own. I actually don’t hold many qualms about being downright contradictory. Everybody has their things and this is just mine.īut, again, I am not an absolutist. There is just something about other people telling me where to go, what to look at, and for how long that rubs coarsely against what I view as the prime directive of travel. But what I don’t like is simply the fact that when you enlist in one you offer up your self-determination, time management capabilities, and spatial desires to someone else … and you pay for this loss of freedom. While I generally despise tours or any form of externally organized travel, what I despise about them isn’t really the idea of them - they’re actually a good idea in many cases.
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