Mantas, like most medium and large underwater creatures, suffer infestation from tiny parasitic crustaceans and have no real way of removing them without some help. Cleaning stationsĬleaning stations are a kind of underwater demilitarized zone where the normal Darwinian survival of the fittest rules of the reef are put on hold while matters of personal hygiene are attended to. I decided to go for a dive along the beach, hoping to get close and while drifting along in the current, I came across the cleaning station and I guess the rest is now history.”Ĭraig christened the cleaning station " and I was fortunate to experience it first-hand just two weeks after that discovery. On arriving, we saw them around the place on the surface, so most of the group went for a snorkel in hopes of getting close to them. “I discovered the cleaning station when we went to Gonu Bara Bara, James my engineer kept insisting that there were lots of mantas at his island, so we went in search of them. Here is how Craig described finding them: Finally, in an act of inspired desperation, he responded to the pleas of James, the boat’s engineer, to check out his home island where there were “lots of mantas just off the beach”. He had gone to all the best-known Milne Bay locations but did not find a single one. Then, back in 2002, almost by accident, Craig de Wit discovered why the mantas were there.Ĭraig is the skipper of the Golden Dawn liveaboard, which had been chartered to search for mantas. Reef mantas had been known to patrol that beach for many years, but all attempts to try and interact with them were random at best-maybe you would see one or more, maybe you wouldn’t.
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