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Up early the next day we gingerly approached the dive centre, the sight of air tanks and respirators on the pavement lifted our hearts, the diving was on!! We were off to the port and on to the boat in seconds! Our first dive was your typical style bay reef dive, what was under the water was not however typical, amongst the multitude of fish we encountered our first rays and scores of white and black tip sharks, even crawling, yes crawling along the bottom to with a metre of one of these amazing creatures! Luckily it was in the mood to run rather than chase! Our next dive was the highlight of the trip. We had been excitably wound up with the talk of the guaranteed chance of seeing real live Manta Rays up close, the only thing that stood in our way was the wonderfully hilarious Vietnamese dive buddy who was less than competent in the water. What awaited us was a 2 kilometre drift dive where you jump overboard and get carried by the aforementioned currents 2km out to see where hopefully the boat would be waiting to pick you up. Luckily the slightly cavalier dive masters were willing to take our new friend into the deep. We jumped overboard and descended to the rocky depths, the current dragged us at pace along the bottom, unfortunately the only animal to be seen was our Vietnamese compatriot being turned in summersaults through the water! With our air at the recommended accent level of 50 bar we disappointedly started to make our way towards the surface to our safety stop. Suddenly the rapid dinging of metal could be heard to our left, we turned to see 3 giant Mantas majestically hovering dead still in the water sucking up the plankton rich water being carried by the current. We swam as fast as we could towards them and dove down to the bottom to grab hold of a rock to prevent us being sucked out by the current. Holding firm whist kicking we watched in awe as these amazing creatures effortlessly swam into the current and disappeared into the blue. Martin having been low on air before the citing found himself with only 10 bar of air left and Emily wasn't far behind. We quickly made our way to the 5 metre stop and nervously waited the required 3 minutes before we could breach the surface our eyes firmly glued to our air gauges as the breathing became more and more of an effort. Martin came to the service with less than 5 bar left and only moments from running out. Thankfully the Manta had left us just in time! What and incredible experience!! Not even the near sinking in the giant swells on the way home could dampen our spirits.
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