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We arrived at Mantaray Island and didnt know what to expect. We were shown to our new home which was a small cabin on stilts called a Bure. This room was small and consisted of a double bed with two bedside tables, a ceiling fan and a balcony complete with two chairs. This was perfect as the only time you went to your room was to sleep! After dropping our bags off in our new home we quickly changed into our swimming gear and headed straight to the beach. We have signed up to swim with the Manatrays and so had our snorkelling gear ready incase we heard the drums sounding to indicate the Mantarays were near by. Whilst waiting for the drums we noticed some Kayaks that were free to use so we took full advantage. It wasnt long before we were in the water racing each other to the neighbouring island which was a short distance away. On approaching the new island we heard lots of Americans on the island so QUICKLY made a U-turn and kept gliding along the water. Kayaking is very hard work so headed back to our island to relax on the beach and restore our energy levels. We still hadnt heard the drums so took the opportunity to dive into the ocean ourselves and create our own adventure. We snorkelled and saw everything the ocean had to offer us! Coral reef was present and although it was not as large a scale as the great barrier reef, it was still amazing to have it all to ourselves. We pondered at all the colours present to us and all the wildlife living amongst the reef. My only regrets were that we didnt own a underwater camera!! Once we returned from our awesome adventure we were informed that the time was getting too late and it would not be safe to venture out at night so we sadly handed in our snorkelling gear......for now! We headed to the dinner hall where we ate our body weight in food and heard that there was a good chance the mantarays would be present early in the morning so we headed home for a early relaxing night and a good bit of shut eye so we would be ready for the mantarays!
We awoke the next morning to find that the drums had not sounded and that the mantarays were being quite unhospitable towards us! How rude!! We relaxed for the rest of the morning and hung out on the beach on full alert just in case!! At lunch we met another young couple who we befriended. The guy Graham was also gagging to see the mantarays and was a big Liverpool fan (yes he was from liverpool as well). Finally I had someone who understood football on this island. We couldnt speak much though as at lunch one of our fellow guests decided to announce he was part of the Sydney Opera and invited himself to stand up and make some noise whilst we all ate. We spent the afternoon snorkelling again and still no mantarays. We did however talk Graham and his girlfriend Emma to join us in the sunset tubing. Sunset tubing consists of buying beers and wine and then heading out on a small boat, once a secure and remote location is found in the water, the people attending then jump in and get in inflatable tubes and drink whilst watching the sunset. To our surprise the sky was cloudy and no sunset was visible however we met two more friends on our trip called Alex and Hannah (brother and sister) who were pretty crazy and so the girls spent the night chatting and the guys spent the night jumping off the boat doing flips and stunts....... yes Sophie videoed me attempting a flip into the water that did go horribly wrong!! It was soon time to head back where we stayed up drinking with our new friends and joining in with the dancing.
We were woken up early the next morning by Graham banging on our door. The drums were banging meaning MANTARAYS were near by. We had 2 mins so jumped out of bed and ran down to get our snorkelling gear. We were the last boat to get to the matarays and soon learned that only one mantaray was present however some stupid German guy had jumped out his boat and landed on the mantaray which scared it and no one could now find it. THANKS ALOT GERMANY!! We headed home not seeing any matarays and had to soon leave our new friends and head to the next island.
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