![]() At first we thought it was a buoy but as we got closer we realised it was a large turtle it obligingly swam close to our boat. ![]() We saw a bird sitting on something in the sea, a dark shape that glistened in the sun. We did have a final treat on the way back. We didn’t see a thing and it was time to head back to shore. We motored on and on, at first staring alertly at the water, later falling into a lethargic daze under the hot sun. The focus of our boat trip was to spot dolphins and whales, so we moved on, further out to sea, the water getting darker beneath us and the town becoming dots on the horizon. Simon caught the jumping rays on video with our iPhone. To us it looked like joyous play or an attempt to fly. Our guide said that the rays jump to remove parasites, but according to Wikipedia that’s just one theory (others include mating rituals, birthing, or communication) and scientists don’t know why they do it. It was only later that I realised how rare the sight is. We’ve seen rays while scuba diving before, but never so many together, and never jumping out of the water. We repeated this a number of times-following them in the boat, stopping to watch them fly out of the water towards us, then catching a glimpse under the water before the group passed. We stopped the boat to watch the ray and more joined it-they jumped together in a row, like synchronised swimmers, diving back into the water and emerging again in unison.Īs they got close to our boat we jumped into the warm water with snorkelling gear, and looking down, realised they were travelling in a school of hundreds of rays their eyes glowing up at us through the hazy sea. Our guide told us it was a manta ray, but we later discovered it was a mobula ray, also known as a devil ray or flying ray. It came towards us, growing larger until we could make out its shape-it was a ray playfully leaping a few feet out of the sea. Not long into the trip our guide pointed out to sea something was jumping out of the water, but we couldn’t see what. We set off from Puerto Escondido’s Playa Principal, a cool breeze causing gentle waves as we passed fishermen in small boats hauling in their catches. It’s whale season, but despite reports of others seeing whales and swimming with dozens of dolphins, we went out on a boat trip with low expectations-our past experience had taught us that much. ![]() It’s been on our bucket list for a long time and we hoped that our luck would change in Puerto Escondido, a beach town on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, where we’re living for a month. In five years of full time travel we’ve never seen dolphins or whales-somehow we always miss the right time of year or just get unlucky. Please read our disclosure for more info.
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