We love data and statistics here at Manta Ray Advocates! As we take guests to swim with manta rays (almost) every night, we keep track of a multitude of things like
- Which manta rays we see every night
- How often each manta shows up at our regular spot, the Kauna’Oa Bay viewing site
- What injuries some of them show up with (and how those injuries heal)
- How often we need to cancel the tour due to high surf or unsafe winter conditions
- How often we need to take precautions against box jellyfish
- And much more.
Here are some of the 2025 statistics crew member Savannah shared when she joined Martina on the Ocean Wings podcast at the beginning of 2026!
Which manta rays showed at Kauna’Oa Bay in 2025?
We had (at least) 18 individual manta rays show up at Kauna’Oa Bay in 2025.
13 females:
- X-Wing
- Kamala Ray
- Vegemite
- Obama Ray
- Louisette
- Jolene Ray
- Luana Ray
- Gita Ray
- Celestial
- And an unknown female that showed up 4 times, but we couldn’t identify.
And 5 males:
- Lana Del Ray (yes, definitely a male!)
- Otho Dee
- Pu’uwai
- Black Diamond
- Sea-Kei
If you came out on a snorkel with us in 2025 (or any other year), met one of the mantas above (or any other manta), and have pictures or stories to share, don’t hesitate to add a note on that manta ray’s page – or contact us directly!
What’s the average sighting success each month?
We operated 270 nights in 2025 (more on that below).
From April through October, our sighting success rate was over 96%; in the peak summer months – May, June, July, and September – we had mantas on every single night we went out.
The winter months (January-February and November-December) bring rougher ocean conditions to the Kona coast (read more about that here!), and for safety reasons, we cancel more often during those months. In February 2025, conditions kept us off the water entirely, which is why that month shows 0% sighting success. It’s not that the mantas disappeared; we simply couldn’t operate. January wasn’t much better – we only got out three times, and saw mantas on one of those nights.
November and December followed the same pattern: as we transitioned back into winter conditions, cancellations became more frequent, and sighting rates dropped accordingly. The numbers for those two months averaged out to around 50%.
Read more about the best times (of the year) to swim with mantas in Hawaii!
Which manta rays did we see most often?
Of the 18 individuals who showed up (regularly or occasionally) at Kauna’Oa Bay, three carried a lot of the sightings:
- X-Wing showed up 178 nights out of 270, making her our most-sighted manta of the year. This is remarkable, given that she only joined our regular group in mid-2024.
- Lana Del Rey (who showed up for the first time just two days after X-Wing, back in 2023) came through 176 nights.
- Third place goes to Kamala Ray, with 128 nights. We’ve watched her grow up since she arrived as a small pup in November 2021, and at this point she knows the drill pretty well: lights at the viewing site = plenty of food to be expected!
When one manta shows up, it’s a good night. These three made a lot of good nights happen, and showed up on plenty of evenings where the group was smaller or conditions were less predictable.
Related materials
If you enjoy digging into data, you may want to review our manta ray sighting statistics from 2009–2014, including annual summaries from 2011–2013.
Be sure to check out Black Diamond Ray’s page in the manta ray library – it tells the full story (with pictures) of him showing up during an evening swim with a hook in his cephalic fin, trailing 12 feet of fishing line behind him… to the night almost two years later when the hook fell out while he was at the viewing site, and we almost got that on film!
For more behind the scenes on the workings of our snorkeling tours, listen to the episodes of the Ocean Wings podcast with crew members Ashley Jacobs and Savannah Maira.
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