June 2020

In 2019 I was commissioned to join a film crew in the Maldives to capture the manta feeding behaviour at Hanifaru bay. I can’t go into too many details but, needless to say, I jumped at the chance to work with the Manta trust in the Maldives again. Over the years I have filmed in Baa Atoll many times for various shows and projects and I try to never miss an opportunity to get back there.

This was a warm water shoot with rebreathers (for coral reef filming, not in the bay) and several lens setups so I travelled from my home in Malaysia with approximately 200kg of equipment. On this occasion I was alone so it was a little tricky pushing three trolleys around the airport but I made it work! Once in the Maldives I met up with the rest of our team and we set off in our liveaboard boat for the overnight steam to Baa atoll. Natural history film crews vary in size and we had a slightly larger team than usual for this shoot with a producer, researcher, dive supervisor, assistant camera operator, myself and our executive producer who joined us for the first week of our four week shoot. The six of us from production were supported by our local dive team and experts from the Manta Trust.

Once on site we spent a day setting up and testing our gear. This ‘shake-down’ day is vital to make sure camera and dive equipment is working smoothly before starting to film in anger. I had brought my Red DSMC2 Helium 8K camera and its Gates housing. We also had a Panasonic GH4 for behind-the-scenes footage and stills, plus the inevitable fistful of GoPros, three rebreathers, an underwater tripod etc etc. It’s a full days work to get everything up and running and deal with the inevitable issues that arise from shipping gear around the world. I was slightly hampered by a couple of missing pelican cases but they arrived with 24 hrs and we were back on track. Once we were done and dusted with prep it was time to head to the bay.

Filming manta rays at Hanifaru is like a chess game. The feeding shifts around and ebbs and flows. There are pulses and lulls. Sometimes there is some really interesting action on the sandy shallows and other times (or maybe at the same time) there can be some great deeper feeding further up the bay. It’s sometimes hard to know where to position yourself, especially as visibility can be poor. It’s a place where FOMO is ever-present and you really have to keep your wits about you and stay frosty! Luckily the team from the manta trust were often present to do their work ID’ing the rays. We also had team members on the roof of our boat spotting, and a drone in the air, and we would all communicate and let each other know where the action was. Using that surface network and my experience in the bay over the years I did my best to position myself where the action was best.

As a professional diver I have a toolbox of diving techniques and equipment open to me. There is a temptation to be snobby and always grab the rebreather but I try to evaluate which tool is right for the specific job. Sometimes it is the rebreather, sometimes good ‘ol SCUBA is the way to go. For this shoot I would have definitely reached in and grabbed my rEvo closed circuit rebreather. A rebreather would have allowed me to stay underwater for long periods of time (in Hanifaru probably 3-4hrs if needed - longer than my battery would hold out in the camera) without pushing out bubbles which open circuit diving produces and which interfere with the manta rays feeding patterns. So I would have been stealthy, stable and I would not upset the mantas. A real win. Unfortunately at that time rebreather diving was not permitted in the bay. We used them during other dives outside the bay but to film the feeding in the bay we had to go back to the toolbox. Scuba was out because it is also banned within Hanifaru. So freediving was the best (ok only) available tool for this job. So freediving it was! I love the challenge and freedom of freediving. If I was given an afternoon off work and could do anything I liked in the ocean I would either be surfing or freediving. It’s athletic, challenging and freeing. However I really would have liked to have the rebreather there! The limitations of freediving are that I would have to anticipate the manta feeding trains and try to dive down in front of them to position myself for a shot. Pushing a big heavy camera down to depths between 5-15m takes time and effort and this meant that I could easily miss out on shots. Once I was down I had between 30-60 secs to get my shot and then start ascending. Total dive times in that situation were generally around 1-2mins. I did however have the advantage that I was mobile and could dive repetitively as much as I liked with relatively little regard for sawtooth profiles (which would have been tough on SCUBA). So like everything in filming it was a compromise, but one I was happy to make. Huge trains of mantas are absolutely stunning to see, and film. Hanging at a depth of ten metres, neutrally buoyant and focused (literally and mentally) while 30-40 huge flappy flaps beat their wings and flew over my head it was easy to dally too long and push my stores of oxygen to the limit. Over the years my aversion to risk has changed and while the younger Roger Munns may have stayed a few more seconds and pushed the limits, the more mature, and slightly more terrified of death, me surfaced with something still in the tank. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and over the course of one feeding event I might do upwards of 50 dives so it’s important to not push it too much, remember that it’s just TV, and come up smiling, not gasping!

The days on location quickly become rhythmical. Our routine for three weeks of actual filming was something like this: up at 5am, light breakfast, load the boat, leave at 6am, film, eat, film, eat, back to the main boat at 6pm (dusk), download, service the gear, light exercise on the top deck, dinner, watch the days rushes (footage), bed at 9pm. I’ve done variations of that routine in locations around the world for the past 20 years. I fall into it very quickly and when the food and diving is good then it’s one of the best routines out there! When the diving (or worse the food) doesn’t deliver then it can be tough and a little hard to stay motivated. Luckily on this occasion it was great on both counts!

We stayed and worked the bay for several weeks and built up some great footage. When it wasn’t ‘on’ we filmed the surrounding reefs or simply waited in the dhoni for the mantas to arrive. It was a real privilege to have that kind of access to such a wonderful and important site. Hopefully I will be able to share the results once the program airs in the next year or two. In the meantime you could visit the bay yourself on an expedition with the Manta Trust. I highly recommend it!