A former pearl farm turned manta ray cleaning station worth stopping for
On the way to the protected anchorage ahead of the blow, Lauren Landers Sailing stopped at a tiny island that used to be a pearl farm and has since become a manta ray cleaning station. A small manta had already been spotted swimming by the previous day. The hope was to find several manta rays circling and interacting at the cleaning station, making it worth an overnight stop to spend as much time as possible with them. In the end, only two manta rays showed up, with one swimming past the reef fairly quickly rather than lingering at the station.
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Diving coral bommies: what to expect on overgrown Pacific patch reefs
The morning after anchoring, several boats in the group dive the bommies in the area. These are patches of coral that rise from 70 to 100 feet below the surface up to the waterline. Lauren Landers Sailing notes that a lot of the coral was o
A juvenile blacktip reef shark found dead in a fish trap net gave the boys a close-up look
During a day of snorkeling, attempted spearing, and watching a hammerhead feed from the drone, Ian and Tara came across a shark tangled in the nets of a fish trap. The shark had already died in the net, so Ian pulled it out of the water so
After 50-100 dives, the crew finally spots a tiger shark in the pass
After days of searching at the atoll, the crew finally achieved their goal. Lauren explains: "We probably dove that pass 50 to 100 times to find this one tiger shark. So, we did it." The sighting was brief but thrilling. Lauren estimated th