Maratua, WOW. The Channel into the Lagoon is an incredible drift dive. You start out on the wall and drift to the channel mouth, then you hang around and watch the action as long as the current lets you, before drifting into the channel. The current wasn't too bad on the first dive, a little stronger on the second. Today there was a huge school of Sailfin Snappers at the mouth. A couple eagle rays cruised through, and the biggest Black Spotted Stingray I've ever seen cruised along the bottom below (it was the size of a small Manta). In the middle of the school was a monster Grouper about six feet long and probably weighing at least 400 pounds. Later a second grouper about the same size joined it. They tried to go into a small entrance to a cave on the bottom of the channel, and something CHASED THEM OUT. It took awhile for me to build up the courage to venture down into the cave to see what had scared away two six foot groupers, and I saw two even bigger groupers lurking way back in there. Then a little further down the channel, we saw a very large Nurse Shark. That was just the first dive. On the second we saw more of the same, plus some Barracudas and Jacks, though not the huge school that they usually see there. We did our third dive on the outside at lighthouse point on a really nice wall with very good corals and lots of fish life. It was sort of like a Sipadan Wall, but maybe a little more pristine. We saw two Mantas pass overhead above us and it made a nice silhouette picture. We made it back to Sangalaki from our Maratua adventure in time to catch the afternoon dive boat.
Maratua costs extra, but it's worth every penny.
