In search of magic everywhere in the world.

We waste no time.

Manta rays are a must-see on every amateur diver’s checklist, and dive tour operators have been babbling about them on the radio all day. It takes us exactly 3 minutes to strap on some compressed air and race to the best vantage point on Koh Bon Pinnacle in the Similan Islands of Thailand.

Beneath the sea’s choppy surface, a world-renown dive site has been reduced to an underwater circus. A chaotic zoo of divers battles the current, dodging the blur of icy thermoclines and jostling for the best position on the reef. Everyone must have heard the same broadcast because it’s more crowded than a water park in summer.

YouTube might have been a better option, after all.

While we wait, foraging titan triggerfish shoot us the stink eye for our intrusion, before darting off in disgust. Groupers duck out of sight, keeping one suspicious eye on the ruckus. Fragile coral suffer us in silence.

No one really seems to notice.

A soft tap on an oxygen tank heralds the arrival of a lone manta ray, and a hush ripples through the crowd. It’s the star of the show, the main event; it’s what we paid for.

The manta enters with an entourage of giant trevally bodyguards and remora groupies, inspecting today’s gathering of divers with stately wing-beats. Like children entranced by the Pied Piper, several new divers lose themselves watching the manta and don’t notice that they’ve begun to float dangerously quickly toward the surface.

As the manta’s 4metre-wide underbelly glides an arm’s length over my head, I’m momentarily hypnotized by an awareness of how blessed I am that this wild animal has, of its own free will, chosen to interact with me at such close quarters.

This must be, I think, how little monsters feel at Lady Gaga concerts.

I resist the urge to touch the manta and settle for spreading my arms instead – it’s not everyday one gets to fly with a wild animal. A part of me is surprised how fast everything literally fades away as we glide in sync, until I realize that I’ve actually drifted away from the reef with the manta.

The spell is broken.

I swim back to safety, grateful for my personal National Geographic moment of solitude with the giant, wishing we’d had more time together. My last thought, as the manta disappears into the deep blue like a dream, is a silent hope that at least one of those zealous camera-swingers was inspired to immortalize my moment on camera.