Kona · United States · Night · Sand slope
Manta Village
Divers kneel on the sand at 10 m with lights aimed straight up
Area photo: Brocken Inaglory · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kona's original manta night dive, on a sand bottom off Keauhou Bay about five miles south of Kailua-Kona. Reef mantas have fed here since the early 1970s, when hotel floodlights first pulled plankton into the shallows, and the modern dive works the same way with divers' lamps. It is shallow, sandy and short on structure: you come for one animal.
Also known as Kaukalaelae Point.
Where it is and how deep
19.5589° N, 155.9663° WApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
Boats leave Keauhou Pier and reach the site in 10 to 15 minutes, dropping you onto a sandy bottom at about 10 metres — 30 to 35 feet, depending which operator's briefing you get. There is no wall and no reef structure to follow. The dive is a fixed position: you kneel or sit in the sand with the rest of the group and point your light straight up into the water above you.
The lights are the whole mechanism. Plankton gathers in the beams, and the rays come to feed on it, turning through the lit column overhead. Snorkellers float on the surface holding lighted boards, so the plankton concentrates between the two layers and the mantas work the space in between. The discipline is staying still: no touching the mantas, no kicking, no lifting off the sand.
Manta numbers swing dramatically from night to night, and sightings are most consistent from September through May, so a quiet evening is worth repeating rather than writing off. Mantas have used this stretch of coast since the early 1970s, when floodlights from the Kona Surf Hotel first lit the surf zone, and they are protected in Hawaii state waters: Act 92, signed in 2009, made it a misdemeanour to knowingly capture or kill a manta ray.
Background
Mantas began gravitating to this stretch in the early 1970s, after the Kona Surf Hotel opened and lit the surf zone with floodlights: the light drew plankton, and the plankton drew the rays. The hotel closed in 2000 and the site lapsed, then was revived in 2004 when the property reopened as the Sheraton Kona Resort & Spa on Keauhou Bay. Mantas in Hawaii state waters have been protected since 2009, when Act 92 made it a misdemeanour to knowingly capture or kill one, with fines of $500, $2,000 and $10,000 for successive offences.
Marine life and season
- Manta rays
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Prime |
Season follows Kona: Manta rays and reef diving are consistent year-round; Dec-Apr adds migrating humpback whales, while winter swell can occasionally limit access to exposed sites.
Dive videos
manta village kona hawaii · Scott Okino on YouTube
dive 22 Manta Village Big Island Hawaii · DiveBigIsland on YouTube
Questions divers ask
How deep is the Manta Village dive?+
The bottom sits at roughly 10 metres — operators quote 30 to 35 feet — and the whole dive is spent down there, so your limit is air and warmth rather than depth.
Do I need to be an experienced diver?+
No. Open Water certification is enough. You stay in one place on the sand at about 10 metres in a sheltered, current-light spot. It is a night dive, which is the only part that catches people out.
Sources
- The 3 Manta Ray Viewing Sites in Kona, Hawaii — Manta Ray Advocates Hawaii
- Manta Ray Night Dive in Kona, Hawaii: Complete Guide — William Drumm
- Manta ray after 2009 anti-hunting law — West Hawaii Today
In The Logbook
- Night diving: the best night dives in the worldNight diving · 12 min read
- Where to dive with manta rays, month by monthBig animals · 8 min read
More dive sites in Kona
Hundreds of garden eels by day, feeding mantas after dark
Cave & cavern
Two lava-tube arches, neither deeper than 9 metres
Sanctuary reef under the cliff where Cook was killed
Pelagic & blue water
Tethered in open ocean at night as deep-water animals rise to the surface
Pinnacle
Green turtles rest at the base while kole surgeonfish clean them
Two lava steps into turtle canyons at the Place of Refuge
Similar dives elsewhere
Hundreds of nurse sharks feeding under a resort pier at night in 3 to 5 m
Shallow cove diving at the foot of the Cabo de Palos lighthouse
A coral slope below the Jesus statue with a resident turtle.
Reef
Hiroshi Point
Kosrae · Micronesia
Very large hard corals inside 6 m, straight off the beach