Dancingwith

ubmerged in 12m of water, drifting in a surreal kind of weightlessness, it was like being in outer space. I’d never known darkness so complete. I glided downwards and only realised I’d reached the bottom when my fingertips touched the coarse sand. In my other hand I clutched a torch so tightly I felt as though it might break. I took a deep breath and heard the bubbles ripple in front of my face. Then I flipped the switch.

A V-shaped glow illuminated the pitch, and my entire world became that slim shot of light. At first all I saw was a murky green. But as the seconds passed, tiny, near-microscopic zooplankton began to appear, wriggling in the beam. Then I looked up to see a giant shape coming towards me. A manta ray, once known by fishermen as the devilfish. And here, below the surface of the Indian Ocean, we were about to dance.

My journey had begun on dry land, on an island in the Biosphere Reserve of Baa Atoll, where I was given a traditional Loabi massage while watching fish through a glass-floored overwater studio at the Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru. I’m someone who thrives on adventure rather than luxury, so it may sound like I was dancing with the devil the moment I stepped foot in a Four Seasons. But, as I quickly found out, this hotel was not all it seemed.

“Since 2001 we’ve not only launched a coral regeneration programme, but also turtle rehab, manta ray research and fish breeding too,” explained marine biologist Sapphire, who I met at the onsite Marine Discovery Centre. She was busy tending a hawksbill that had had one of its flippers ripped off by a boat propeller; the centre had nursed him back to health and were preparing him for reintroduction into the wild.

Sapphire was one of the ten or so biologists that are stationed at the resort at any one time. Profits from the hotel help to fund the scientific research they are undertaking, while the biologists can help guests learn about the local marine life and the threats it faces. And there are many. Rising sea temperatures are causing coral bleaching events and a lack of the zooplankton on which most animals feed; entanglement, unintended bycatch and boat strikes are harming many creatures; endangered manta rays are being illegally fished – recent claims in Chinese medicine have resulted in manta gill plates being valued at $10,000.

Sapphire showed me some of the conservation work being done on land, such as looking after injured animals, recording manta numbers and

their presence by holding his hand to his head like a fin. I stopped and looked around nervously. Then, out of the darker water below, the unmistakable shape of a white-tipped reef shark – about 1.5m in length – swam towards me, its pointed nose almost close to touching. At the last minute it swerved. Then more came behind it. Any fear was replaced with overwhelming awe as these graceful creatures propelled themselves amid the current before disappearing into the speckled darkness.

“You’ve come to see mantas and tomorrow I think we’ll be lucky,” said Guy at our recap that evening. It was late August, which is technically low season in the Maldives because, up until November, the water visibility is not as good (though it’s still around 20m). However, for our purposes, this was exactly what we needed. “The ‘bits’ we’re seeing in the water are the zooplankton – the reasons the manta come here,” he explained. “So the fact we see a lot of it is a very good sign.”

Guy began recording manta sightings in the region on a electronic database more than 15 years ago. This database now extends to other regions around the world where mantas are found – in the tropics and semi-tropics such as Mexico, Thailand, Australia and Mozambique. He has built up a huge body of research comprising more than 60,000 sightings of 4,500 mantas – 2,000 of which are from Baa Atoll in the Maldives. These statistics can be used to prove how mantas are affected by environmental factors and help push governments into changing practices, from banning single-use plastics to altering the way commercial fishing is carried out and even creating ranger-patrolled protected areas such as Baa Atoll.

“So how do we tell them apart?” I asked Guy the next morning as we prepared to snorkel in a known manta feeding hotspot called Hanifaru to do our own research.

“On the white underside of each manta are a series of spotted and darkened patches – no two