Nurse the Hate: The Manta Ray

It has been so long since I have seen or felt the sun that my skin is becoming translucent like a cave fish.  If I were to strip down to my underwear and lay on the sand near a populated stretch of Lake Erie, passersby would assume a corpse has floated up from the depths.  I have no idea where my sunglasses are as they are irrelevant in this life I have chosen here in God’s Forsaken Corner of Ohio.  This is no way to live.

As a man of certain means, I need to extricate myself from this place and go somewhere where I can focus on shuffling around in shorts with horribly sunburned legs, laying around in a hammock of some kind and placing myself in some sort of mortal danger with a scuba dive well beyond my limited abilities.  I had hoped to do my Great White Shark dive this winter, but I just can’t escape from here long enough to make the trip to southern Australia.  That has made me focus on another great sea creature I am intrigued by, the manta ray.

With the help of my good friend The Google Machine I have found some islands off Costa Rica where the manta ray come for several months to feed.  These huge rays can be spotted, often swimming along with schools of hundreds of devil rays, serenely skimming plankton.  This sounds awesome.  However, there are a few downsides to this quest.

These islands are located about 30 miles off the coast of an inconveniently located beach town.  It’s the type of town that requires going out of a “Central American Regional Airport”.  This translates to climbing into a small plane where the first question they ask you is “Did you bring your own goggles?” before someone cranks the propeller to make the engine start on the bi-plane.  With luck, you won’t have to hold a chicken on your lap.

The dive itself sounds well beyond my rather meager skill level.  Sea conditions have to be monitored daily as currents and visibility are highly chaotic.  All the sites I looked at said “this area is not recommended for new divers”.  This is likely because beyond the strong currents pushing you out to sea, the visibility can make things murky not just for you but for the bull sharks that patrol the area.  These sharks, 6-7 meters in length, tend to feed more by vibrations in the water than by sight.  Hence, if you are an inexperienced diver and are thrashing around in the current (like myself) the shark can confuse you with an injured fish and strike you.  The good news is that as the dive is at 100 feet plus, you will likely bleed out before getting to the surface to be evacuated to shoddy medical facilities to have limbs amputated.  This is exactly what I am looking for in a dive.

 I picture myself having misplaced confidence as I climb into a boat of leathery brown Costa Ricans that call me “Tonto”.  Speaking almost no Spanish, I will assume they have taken a liking to me and have embraced me as a mascot as opposed to calling me “Fool” to my face.  As it has been about a year since I dove last, I will have almost no memory of how the gear works or is put together.  Like a real man, I will refuse to ask for help and make a disastrous error in assembling the vest or hoses that will come back to haunt me at 100 feet.  Not having to ask for help is MUCH more important than risk losing face to my new Costa Rican friends.  “Mira ese tonto en el agua…”  

I can’t lie though, one of the most anticipated parts of seeing a manta ray swimming around is when that Pixies “Manta Ray” pops into my head.  My only fear is their vastly inferior B-side “Dance The Manta Ray” pops into my head instead.  Really, this is all I have left now.  I am a man with only the most basic dreams.  Most of life’s major successes are well out of reach for me now.  I need to focus in on “attainable goals” like getting shoved out to sea with malfunctioning scuba gear as I play “My manta ray’s all right!  My manta ray’s all right! My manta ray’s all right!  Alllllll RIGHT!” in my mind.  It is absolutely perfect.