How To Ride a Manta Ray

And Why Becoming a Writer Late In Life Isn’t a Disadvantage

For obvious reasons, you shouldn’t ride manta rays.

But it’s definitely possible.

So if you have an I-want-to-feel-like-Aquaman wish or are simply the kind of dare-devil who sees a crocodile and thinks, “hmm, I bet I could tackle that,” riding a manta ray might just be the experience you’re missing in your life.

When I was younger, I would definitely jump at the opportunity to grab a manta ray by its upper lip and yee-haw or, more accurately, breeebl-braaawbr my way underwater. Unfortunately, I’m now a grown man who has developed a nagging sense of morality and understands that it’s not okay to harass wild animals. Or anyone, for that matter.

However, if you’re not one afflicted by morality and still want to do it, here’s how:

Book a trip to Hawaii, Indonesia, or any other country where mantas like to hang out and bring some diving gear. Mantas are timid creatures, so you must go after them. If you manage to get close enough, make sure you give them a good belly rub first. Then, once they find you tolerable, swim over them and latch on to their upper lip.

As a result, much like a rodeo bull, the manta will be startled by this sudden violation of its body and try to shake you off, but instead of pushing out, it’ll dive deeper, forcing you to choose between letting go or a horrible, excruciating death.

And for a brief moment, you’ll be a manta rider.

On the other hand, there are writers

Some writers knew they wanted to be writers all their lives and prepared accordingly. They went to college to study journalism and English literature, fell asleep countless times face first onto the works of Shakespeare, and wrote well over a million words before they even attempted to land an unpaid internship. Contrastingly, some writers woke up one morning in their thirties and thought, hmm, I bet I could tackle that.

If you’re in the second group, first of all, welcome, and secondly, what are you doing, you lunatic? Do you know how hard it is to launch a writing career? What makes you think you can possibly make it in this realm?

Well, here’s what I keep telling myself in order to get on with it:

Writing is equal parts putting words down and life experience.

In other words, I can now be a somewhat successful writer because I know not to ride manta rays.

I can infer the experience without startling any wildlife because I did other insanely crazy shit when I was younger. I met many interesting people and led a fairly exciting life to the horrors of my mother.

For once, you got maturity working on your side.

Life and all it has to give

For example, I can count the times I nearly punched my ticket on both hands.

I almost died of hypothermia on three separate occasions. One, hiding from the maritime police while in a wet suit because I was snorkelling where I shouldn’t. Two, I got drunk and fell asleep by a bonfire that betrayed me, dying during the night, nearly taking me with it. And three, I climbed a mountain with a friend without rain gear during a severe ice storm. (These two blithering idiots didn’t check the weather forecast before climbing a freaking mountain during winter. And then they got even dumber when hypothermia settled in.)

Once, I drove my car into a stone wall at 80km/h. It was unintentional; I can tell you that much.

When I was young, I fell a full storey onto a staircase with only my head to dampen the fall. I passed out briefly and surprisingly made it with only a few scratches on my face. My mother didn’t even think it worthy of a hospital visit. However, I can still remember the headache.

One night while walking home with a friend, a drug addict tried to stab me for my pocket money. If my friend hadn’t started hurling stones at him, I’d probably have discovered what it feels like to be a shish kebab. The blade missed my belly by barely a centimetre. Still, I think I could’ve survived a measly stab to the gut.

I had more opportunities to flirt with lady death, but the closest I’ve been to kicking the bucket was while diving to catch octopuses. I got stuck under a rock due to malfunctioning gear and had only the air in my lungs to sustain me. My diaphragm convulsed violently, my lungs tried to evict my body through my mouth, and my whole chest hurt as if being crushed by a steam roller while I figured out the problem. When I found the loose cable that had somehow snuck between a gap in the rocks and cut myself free, even my vision had begun to funnel. And all of this happened not even a meter under the surface. What a truly horrific experience.

Still, none of these was the scariest moments of my life. That honour is reserved for when my first son was born and didn’t breathe straight away after a prolonged labour—for endless seconds, time stood still. The background noise faded into a whisper, and the rest of the world went dark. I held my breath as if drowning under that stupid rock, except the breath I was looking for wasn’t even mine, and I could do nothing to save my son’s life. My wife whispered, “please breathe.” I numbly looked at her and witnessed the fear in her eyes. Why was it taking so long? The sheer impotence of the moment was enough to raise a man’s soul to the ground while the midwives worked relentlessly on our baby, massaging his back and belly furiously until, thankfully, that purple human-shaped blob gulped a handful of air and started crying. I cried too. Abundantly. Even as I write this, 3 years later, the agony is still fresh. Coincidently that was also the moment when I experienced the most relief.

Why am I telling you all of this?

One, is so we can get to know each other a little better. Hello, how are you? Do you also have interesting stories for me?

The other is to tell you that if you’re in your thirties and decided to write for a living, you have a huge advantage over younger writers.

Life has soaked you in extreme and exciting ideas, adventures, happenings, accidents, new lives being born and the ultimate sorrows of having to say goodbye to someone you held dear.

These experiences, these feelings, they are rich and powerful, and if you tap into them, you will inadvertently tell stories rich with grit, presence and meaning.

Use that power and smear it all across your worlds and words, and your writing will be unstoppable.

Because who wouldn’t want to read a story like that?

So yes, I bet you can tackle this one or any other manta ray in your way.

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