How to Get Beneath the Surface to Meet Sea Creatures – and Why It Matters

May 3, 2025 By Doug Wallace

“Just follow my flashlight,” the snorkel guide says as we wade into the warm, moonlit waters of Kaunaoa Beach. We’re heading for Manta Ray Point, a stone’s throw from the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel in the north end of Hawaii Island, where a small squadron of reef manta rays apparently hangs out.

Our group of six is instructed to encircle a little surfboard the guide has brought. A light, pointing down, is attached at a hole in the middle of the board. We hold onto the board with both hands, but our faces are in the water.

A Hawaiian reef ray in waters off the Island of Hawaii/Getty Images

Moments later, a couple of graceful rays with wingspans of about 6 feet appear, then a third. I have to squint – but not for long. One of them swoops right up to the light, mouth open wide, and makes a circular loop to almost touch our board, gliding no more than 2 feet from our faces.

As it barrel rolls back down, we can see right into the gills. I stifle a few quiet squeals, but as the ray keeps performing its slow twirls, I am stunned into silence, witnessing one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

Thanks to the briefing before we hit the water, no one is frightened. These gentle, majestic marine inhabitants pose no threat. They merely want to use our light to see the delicious zooplankton they eat by filtering water through their gills and mouth. We are simply making supper easier.

This snorkel adventure in the shallow coastal habitat of Hawaiian reef rays is an excellent example of how conservation-forward, environmentally sensitive interaction with sea creatures can help visitors learn more about them. It’s an educational pursuit that also helps foster concern for the animals’ well-being and preservation.

“It’s all about giving people the experience to see that we are not the only species on the planet and to humble ourselves,” says Martina Wing, founder of this manta ray experience and a conservationist for more than 30 years. “Unfortunately, we are so removed from nature. I want people to get back to nature and to find a way to make the world work for all of us.”

By learning about ocean-dwellers, we also learn how to protect them and can pay that knowledge forward. In the grand scheme of the travel world, this makes perfect sense. Travel is about enlightenment after all.

‘We only protect what we love and we only love what we understand.’
Jacques Cousteau

“I bring people’s heart into the equation,” Wing adds. “There’s a famous quote from Jacques Cousteau: ‘We only protect what we love and we only love what we understand.’”

I learn that this particular type of ray never sleeps, requiring constant movement to breathe. They sort of rest periodically to give their brains a break yet continue to move as though they’re on autopilot. I also learn that they are considered threatened, although not officially endangered, because of habitat degradation.

Whale shark snorkeling in Western Australia

A whale shark at the Ningalo0 Reef in Western Australia. These creatures can be as long as 59 feet, although 39 feet is more common, and can live to be 100 years old./Getty Images

I am further enlightened in the Indian Ocean off Exmouth in Western Australia, signing on to a boat tour to swim with the whale sharks, the world’s largest fish (also pictured in photo at top). They gather here from April to July to feed on the plankton blooms after the mass coral spawning on Ningaloo Reef, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Whale sharks swim close to the water’s surface, so they are fairly easy to spot. The boat crew determines which way the fish is heading before sending us into the water in an almost military formation.

Whale sharks are “filter feeders,” so they swim with their mouths open, taking in zooplankton, fish and more./Getty Images

I line up single file with the other snorkelers, wait for the signal, then put my face in the water. There, not 15 feet away is a majestic, midnight-blue whale shark, at least 20 feet long, its white spots vibrant in the shallow, sun-dappled water. (Later, the crew explains that whale sharks have a unique pattern of spots, almost like a fingerprint.) We begin swimming along with this passive animal, careful not to get too close or to swim over the top of it.

It’s like snorkeling along with a bus.

A few of us manage to keep up with its slow, straight bearing. Its efficient, tail-sweeping movement is hypnotic, almost meditative. Even though I’m an avid scuba diver, no dive has ever come close to the surrealism of this experience.

Sting rays, sharks and other sights in the South Pacific

Bora Bora is known for its overwater bungalows./Doug Wallace for Silversea

On a trip to French Polynesia, more rays – sting rays this time – make my day in the Bora Bora lagoon. “Here fishy, fishy,” the boat captain repeats, as all hands have all eyes on the glistening blue water. When we do find them – or rather, when they find us, as they seem to know we come bearing fish – we hop in the water and become part of the show.

They put the “sting” in stingray: The sting ray, unlike the manta ray, has a barb on its tail. But the manta ray is much larger, growing as much as 23 feet long compared with the sting ray’s 7 or so feet./Getty Images

Sting rays are gentle and social, and they know this routine. Their mouths are on their soft undersides and they have a sort of vacuum effect that sucks in food after hovering over it. Flat teeth grind anything that needs breaking up. A few black-tipped reef sharks are also part of the crowd, swimming around our shins, anticipating stray scraps.

Give lemon sharks some space. They are part of the family called Carcharhinidae, which is generally not fond of humans./Getty Images

A lemon shark is spotted toward the end of the tour outside the lagoon. Contrary to logic, we enter the water once more, giving the 10-foot creature a wide berth and watch it lurk below the boat. Lemon sharks are calm and docile, living mostly in shallow waters where they often come in contact with humans swimming or diving. It slowly wanders away – then returns; inquisitiveness is reportedly one of its behavioral traits.

Bio-wizardry in the mangrove moonlight

Waves, lit with bioluminescence, lap onto Castara beach at night under a sky full of stars on the Caribbean island of Tobago./Getty Images

Marine life doesn’t have to be large to be impressive. I discover this on a nighttime kayak tour through the mangroves on the Caribbean island of Tobago, becoming acquainted with bioluminescent microorganisms. These tiny seawater ocean-dwellers glow in the dark, thanks to a chemical reaction inside their cells. They light up with each stroke of my paddle.

Jumping out of the kayak to swim sets off swaths of light, as if I’m a magical character in an animated movie.

Visitors to Puerto Rico can choose from three bioluminescent bays. The most accessible, in Fajardo in the northeast, is a lagoon that allows for easy kayaking; thee one in Lajas in the southwest is the only one in which visitors can swim. The third is off Vieques island and is recognized as the brightest.

The dugong once was hunted for its meat and skin, but it is now considered a vulnerable species./Getty Images

My rarest sighting? A dugong, a marine-mammal relative of the manatee, also found in Australia. It is considered endangered because of a slow reproductive rate and environmental changes to the supply of the seagrass it eats. I don’t swim with it as much as share the water with it for a few seconds; after spotting us, it tears off in the opposite direction.

The snorkel guide is thrilled, her exuberance underscoring the rarity of the encounter. We decide to name it Doug the dugong, of course.