We stop for swimming with manta rays

  

We stop for swimming with manta rays around Mesharifa island and its lagoons. It is known that mantas are concentrated in this area during the summer to breed. From September until early November, you can meet them in number and concentration of interest. An appointment that repeat in early summer. This is a real spectacle, a symphony: the calm sea, manta rays gather to feed on along the thread of the current, so busy and totally disinterested to us to leave divers swim at close range. You can swim so close to be touched with a gentle and light touch. Some of them are beautiful, with a touch of regal and almost eerie charm: they are completely black, belly and back and great suckfishes swim in their shadow, they seem queen followed by vassals. The water is cloudy, as in all lagoons, there is a lot of suspension, but the show is equally magical and magnificent.
You assist a fashion show: one after the other, they "fly" in unison with their mouths wide open, until the first, with a large intentional spiral, glides beneath the other and goes last, and so do all, creating a carousel of white bellies, shiny dark backs and large open mouths: we do not have the soundtrack of Maria Callas, as Besson's Atlantis,but it's ok and we are content with a background of sea gulls. We remains wrapped - snorkelers, divers and mantas - in clouds of sardines, a gleam of silver. You can enjoy the wonderful swimming, equipped with masks and fins in the middle of the lagoon all morning and it is difficult to decide to leave the water. It is worth extending the route to the land, away from the dive sites and then, satisfied, I can say, happy to leave the lagoon and go back to the sea for other dives.