Manta Point, Ten Years Later

I went back to Manta Point in Bali ten years after the first dive. The site sits off Nusa Penida, a short boat from Bali, and mantas still show up there to feed and to clean themselves. The water was still good. The plastic was not.

The mantas

As soon as we went down, the same feeling as last time: mantas moving past, some with wingspans of up to 20 feet. They look like they are flying. Coral and fish around them. I spent the dive filming, which I could not do a decade ago.

Ten years, more plastic

The difference was the rubbish. Ten years ago the water looked clean. This time there were bags, bottles, and wrappers drifting through the coral, and sometimes right past the mantas.

That is a short decade for that much change. The site is still worth diving. It is also harder to watch when a manta swims through a bag.

Filming both

I filmed the mantas. I filmed the plastic too. Leaving one of those out would have been the dishonest version of the dive.

After

Despite the plastic, the mantas were as I remembered. This dive also left me with a sense of urgency. Plastic like this is showing up on reefs far from Bali too. If we don't cut plastic and look after these sites, the animals will keep paying for it. Reducing waste, supporting conservation, and talking about what we see on dives are all things we can actually do.