Sue J. Estey, Scuba Diver

It was a lazy Baja morning, calm on the Sea of Cortez. We were loitering southward along the eastern cliffs of Isla Espiritu Santo. Someone spied a pair of black fins protruding from the glassy water, just off our port side.

First, I saw the side and then the tail of it, slowly moving side to side and propelling the 20-foot animal out of sight faster than I could swim. The remora on its tail swung wildly with each sweep of the great tail. The second time, we entered the water a little farther ahead of it, and I dived down to see its white belly and wide mouth. It swam on between us and we did not see it again. No one got pictures.

We stopped and went in to float in the salt lagoon, had lunch, relaxed, and finally I set out in a kayak for the next point south. The Marisla would follow a little later, and we would dive at the point. Another diver took a second kayak and paddled on past me beyond the point.

To the south, we saw something leaping out of the water as dolphins do, and splashing back down. As I got closer, I could see that as the animals leaped, their ends were shaking up and down, and finally I realized they were rays, and their wings were beating the air. Glen had gotten much closer than I, and said he thought they might land right on his boat.

Mantas, perhaps four feet across, just a few of them. Glen said it would be fun to dive with them. I didn't think there was much chance that I'd happen to see them in the water; it was unpredictable where they would leap, and visibility was not nearly so good in the water as in the air. But I slipped in with my mask and snorkel anyway, and there, below me, it was as if the ocean floor had become a moving array of hundreds of mantas, easily a thousand of them. They formed a pattern, like manta-shaped tiles, but always shifting. Each one coasted nearly forever, then the wings would lift and pull down to start another glide. They were fairly close to the surface, and seemed to be in layers.

By the time we were in the water with scuba tanks, they were still cruising the area, and twice I saw them overhead. I stood at attention at 60 feet and saluted them as they flew over. It was completely amazing, awesome, memorable. Again, no pictures except in all our minds.

There was one diver with us who had not dived in the ocean at all, though he had once snorkeled in Tortola. He had been certified in Connecticut lakes and a quarry in Pennsylvania. He found himself diving in the midst of the rays; they surrounded him and flew on past. With this week for a first dive trip, will he ever be able to equal the experience?

To top off the day, I climbed to the crow's nest as we traveled back toward La Paz, and looked down at the deck with quaking knees.

Tropical reefs and California kelp forests are wonderful, but those encounters last Friday reminded me of the big creatures out there, living their lives largely unobserved by any of us.