You Can Call Me Ray, Or You Can Call Me Jay, But She Doesn't Have To Call Me Mobula.

      Within hours of posting my story of the curious ray sighting in the Inner Harbour, I received an email from Bob Hillis.  My old compañero, now residing in the Rockies, has re-invented himself as a marine biology research assistant with a focus on the Sea of Cortez.  Considering that he lives in

A school of Bent Fin Devil Rays  Elasmodiver.com

southern Utah, this is quite a feat. At any rate, with this new marine focus, certain species are closer to the tip of his cerebral cortex than may be true for those of us who are somewhat limited to the biology of the Hawaiian Islands.  

    In this instance Bob thought of an animal which I have seen only once, at an extreme distance...the Bent Fin Devil Ray.  Also known as Smooth Tail Mobula or Thurston's Devil Ray, this ray occurs near shore in tropical seas around the world.  Curiously, it is less common in Hawaiian waters than many other places.  It is far more common, for example, in the Sea of Cortez.  My one sighting was at Cabo Pulmo, 40 miles north and a world away from San Jose del Cabo.  From a deserted beach on the south side of the cape, Sandra and I watched these rays leap from the ocean.  Although we were a hundred yards away, the image of a large ray leaping clear of the water remains indelible. 

    This was back in 2005, before I had friends like Bob Hillis and Peter Krottje to prod me towards better scholarship.  I composed my fishlist for the trip to Cabo Pulmo from a field guide by Thomson,

Thomson et al and the Cabo Pulmo Brochere With Flying Mobulas

Findley and Kersitch.  It was written in 1979 and reprinted in 1987.  Being ichthyologists, they have the fish in the correct order.  This does not explain why they made a separate chapter for rays and sharks, which we all agree are fish, towards the end of the book. (Any ichthyologist knows that the cartilaginous fishes, being more primitive, belong at the beginning of the list.) Can you feel an excuse coming on?  Being a bad ichthyologist myself, I put the sharks and rays at the end of my list and left out the Smooth Tail Mobula.    Along with a picture of this old field guide I have included a brochure givento  me at the Cabo Pulmo Dive shop featuring a picture of the not-so-notorious STM.  Nevertheless, when Sandra and I saw these leaping rays they were duly recorded.  

    As a total aside, this was an incredible vacation.  The small resort was in the middle of nowhere, right on the beach.  Sandra and I had a tiny casita with a propane refrigerator and stove.  Every day a different pickup would come down from LaPaz selling something..bread one day, fish the next.  I'd love to go back.  

Manta Ray, Kawaihae  September 2020

Mobula thurstoni is one third the size of coastal manta rays and the pups are smaller, too.  Bob worked as a dive guide here in Hawaii and thought that these rays, though rare, would be possible here and might be what we saw.  With this in mind he recommended that I consult Deron Verbeck, who is perhaps the premier blue water guide here in Kona.  Fortunately I met Deron two years ago when he showed us the tiger sharks near the airport.  Here is what Deron said: 

In my 28 years in Hawaii I have only seen mobula rays twice, once from the boat and once in the water. Neither were near shore, but a friend saw one last week over the deep reef.  In my humble opinion what ray the person was indicating was a spotted eagle ray. Size (of the ray) and area (in which) it was sighted would lead me to believe this. 

 

    I praise Bob for bringing this unusual species to our attention and congratulate him for turning me into his research assistant.   And thanks to Bruce Mundy and Deron Verbeck for their help.  But now I want to go back to Cabo Pulmo and take another crack at those flying rays!

   Yesterday we drove up to Kawaihae where we met up with Peter and Marla.  They have completed

their two week quarantine and were eager to go swimming.  As we arrived Lottie alerted us that the mantas rays were in.  As we arrived at the top of the stairs, we could see a fin about twenty yards away.  As it turned out, we all swam about fifty yards before encountering our first ray.  

 

    This was the second time we had seen mantas at this location.  The first time was in April and the visibility was deplorable.  Yesterday visibility was about 20 feet. We swam with the rays for over an hour, it being summer and the water in the comfortable mid 80s.  During this time we had perhaps ten encounters that lasted 20 to 30 seconds.  When you see a ray swim by and then watch it turn back towards you it is quite a thrill.  As you can see, I took  a few still pictures but tried really hard to come up with some video.

 

   Mostly the rays appeared singly or in pairs.  It was difficult to tell how many individuals we saw.  It might have been 5, or possibly only 3.  Assuming it was only three, which I think is likely, they had wing spans of seven, eight, and ten feet. 

 

    Ashore we had a nice chat with all our friends.  I'm glad to report that baby Naia is full of smiles.  and so were we after spending some quality time with the manta rays.   

 

 

 

Well, you can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay...

  

   The best manta ray video was too large to be downloaded on this platform.  We here at the blog are working on handling those files.  In the meantime we will attempt to take videos less than 20 seconds n duration.

        

But she doesn't have to call me Mobula