Day SIX- Manta Day

No luck buying Splendour in the Grass festiavl tickets so i have a bit of a bigger budget for my pocket. i spoke to my friend from brisbane about this and both are distraught!

Today i swam with a manta ray barrel feeding, turtles and reef sharks lurking in the depths. We rode from the reef shop on a bus down to the boat jetty and began our voyage over the waves through the boat channels of the reef. After 30 minutes of sunning ourselves in the morning warmish sun on the deck , we slowed around a place called 'Bateman's Bay' a small bay where there was a gap in the reef. Here there was a bay with a small gap in the reef and a Manta was spotted. A dark diamond shape benaeth the waves. We donned our wetsuits and snorkel gear and slowly submerged ourselves into the sea. I was the first to follow Jess-the deckhand. Once in the water I saw such a majestic creature gliding through the waters underneath us -3m wingspan and stopping every so often to barrell roll for feeding. They are filter feeders and this is the most effective way to feed. After around an hour of following the graceful paper fish floating arouund in the sea, we jumped back on to the boat for a 45min trip to a lagoon reef in front of a reef break. Its great knowing a bit about the bio diversity, formations and diseases of coral. I didn't snorkel the second time but had a tea instead! We then cruised by a turtle reminding me of Nemo and the chilled out turtle-woah dude! I snorkelled in the last stop a rather deep one again. The coral here was well formed huge porites, brain corals and plays not much staghorn here. Neon fish, a nemo fish, tomato fish!, fluke fish, spangled emperors swarmed underneath the stationary boat. There were 5 reef sharks lurking below us in the depths at one point, rather big too around 5-6m in length! Yikes. We then returned to land-thankfully- whereby I walked to a sheltered spot for another nap and joined the others to watch yet another fantastic sunset and out to the little pub!