Kiteboarding with Manta Rays

Aistė | Kitesurfing | December 22, 2009

When you see the eyes of the stingray, it is time to change direction – was the phrase that i’ve written on my facebook profile that day. Only later on i’ve read that due to their anatomy, stingrays do not see what is in front of them. And obviously can’t look you in the eye. And only later on i’ve learned that it wasn’t a stingray that i’ve seen that evening in the sea of Cortez. It was a manta ray.

Anyway. Here’s a short story itself. We were going to downwind from Hot Springs beach to Bill’s resort. The distance is less than two miles. The wind was quite steady, however, we had some clouds and that made the weather a little bit chilly (If it can be called chilly here in Baja). Due to that litlle chill, we were riding quite fast. Since it was few days as strong north wind was blowing, the water was dark blue and chopy. Sometimes you could meet some really nice wave. Actually i was trying to catch one when i saw it. Right in front of me.

Just like that. Loking at me. Not a very pleasant feeling, you know. Seing something like this size of huge table (most of mantas are 12 feet across). Somehow i felt that i don’t belong here. I’m allien to this sea world. I made a turn and headed towards the island. Then i looked around and saw that these mantas were everywhere. We were surounded by them. Some massive hunting group was heading the opposite direction then we. We could count around twenty…

Next day all knowing Wikipedia told me that this manta group meeting is the way these creatures communicate and hunt. The great crashing splash of their reentries can often be heard from miles away. Since these leaps are highly energetic and often repeated several times in succession, they may simply represent a form of play.

So here we were! In the middle of playing flying mantas. Riding a kite in the sea of Cortez. Amazing!