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The next morning, we're off again to look for mantas.
第二天早上，我们又出发去找蝠鲼了。
Divemasters Shah and Schumi are on top of the boat scouring the water for shadows.
潜水长沙阿和舒米站在船上寻找海水中的影子。
They want to find us the mantas just as badly as we want to see them.
他们和我们一样急切地想找到蝠鲼。
We approach Hanifaru Bay with baited breath.
我们充满期待地接近哈尼法鲁湾。
There's one, there's one!
这有一只，这有一只！
Look there!
快看那！
Schumi's keen eyesight has caught a shadow a few hundred yards away, in the middle of Hanifaru Bay.
舒米锐利的目光在几百码外的哈尼法鲁湾中心捕捉到了一个阴影。
As we get closer, we realize there are at least a dozen mantas swimming around at the surface.
我们靠近时，注意到至少有十来只蝠鲼在水面上游动。
Who knows where they were yesterday, but today, they're here!
谁知道它们昨天去哪了，反正今天，它们都到这来了！
So, without wasting any time, we get ready to go into the water.
所以，抓紧时间，准备下水。
Some of our group is going to try snorkeling with them, which is probably a better way to keep up.
我们组有人将试着和它们一起浮潜，这可能是跟上它们的一个更好的方法。
To shoot steady footage, I really need to get down away from the surface waves, so I'm going to use my scuba gear.
为了使镜头稳定，我真的需要远离海面的波浪，所以我要用潜水装备了。
I hit the water and immediately, a manta turns and comes towards me, flying like a huge bird with a ten-foot wingspan right over my head!
我下水了，一只蝠鲼马上转了个头，向我游来，像一只巨大的鸟，翼展有十英尺宽，从我头顶游过！
These strangely shaped animals are relatives of sharks.
这些外形奇特的动物是鲨鱼的近亲。
They have no swim bladder and they sink if they stop swimming, so just like gigantic underwater birds, they flap their wings to move and stay up off the bottom.
它们没有鱼鳔，如果停止游泳就会下沉。所以，它们就像水下的巨鸟一样，拍动侧翼移动并保持在水底上面一点的位置。
Even though their mouths are open wide, these animals present no threat to people.
即使它们的嘴长得很大，但这些动物也不会对人类造成威胁。
They eat only plankton.
它们只吃浮游生物。
They catch the plankton by swimming with their mouths open wide and funneling extra water in using two special fins in front of their mouth, called cephalic lobes.
它们张开嘴游泳来捕捉浮游生物，然后用嘴前部两个特殊的鳍（称为头叶）排掉多余的水。
Looking down into a manta's throat, you can see the gills.
向下看蝠鲼的喉咙，能看到它的鳃。
The water goes back out through the gills, but the plankton gets caught on comb-like filters.
水通过鳃流出来，浮游生物则会被梳状过滤器捕获。
So a manta ray is like a big swimming strainer that filters out all the tiny planktonic bug-like animals in the water.
因此，蝠鲼就像一个大型的游泳过滤器，可以过滤掉水中所有微小的浮游昆虫样的动物。
As I watch them feed, I can see their massive gill slits underneath, where the water comes back out.
我看着它们进食时，我能看到它们巨大的鳃在下面裂开，水从里面流出来。
While some mantas like to swim along the surface to feed, others find a good spot filled with plankton and do barrel rolls, filtering the same cloud of plankton over and over until they have gotten most of it.
一些蝠鲼喜欢在海面上游动觅食，而另一些则发现了一个充满浮游生物的好地方，它们会做桶状旋转，一遍又一遍地过滤着同一团浮游生物，直到把大部分都吃掉。
This pair of mantas feeds in formation.
这对蝠鲼编队进食。
I have no idea if this helps them feed more effectively, if it's just a coincidence, or maybe they are pals.
我不知道这是否能帮助它们更有效地进食，还是只是个巧合，或者它们是朋友。
The mantas don't seem to mind me at all.
蝠鲼似乎一点也不介意我的存在。
At first I thought that maybe they were so busy feeding that they didn't notice much, but sometimes it seems like they're actually coming by on purpose to give me a look.
一开始我以为它们是忙着进食所以没注意那么多，但有时他们似乎是故意过来看我一眼。
The water is filled with tiny silvery fish that are also feeding on the plankton.
水中充满了以浮游生物为食的银色小鱼。
They swim through my frame like a cloud of silver, dangerously near the mantas mouths, but fast enough to avoid the hungry mantas.
它们从我身边游过，像一团银色的云，在蝠鲼嘴边游动，看似非常危险，但它们游得很快，可以躲开饥饿的蝠鲼。
As the sun gets lower in the sky, the tide is turning, and conditions for feeding become less ideal.
太阳从天空慢慢落下，潮汐也在改变，捕食条件变得越来越不理想。
The mantas start to wander off into the open ocean.
蝠鲼开始在开阔的海洋中漫游。
Man that is what we came for!
这就是我们此行的目的！
Dozens of manta rays all feeding at the same time with the tide going out.
十几条蝠鲼都在涨潮时进食。
Amazing to see with all their mouths wide open and zooming back and forth!
它们都张大嘴巴，前后游动，真是太神奇了！
Man that was awesome!
绝妙至极！
After ten days at Hanifaru Bay, I only saw the feeding frenzy on three occasions when conditions were just right.
在哈尼法鲁湾待了十天，我只在三次条件适合的情况下才看到进食狂潮。
But those magical few hours I spent in the water with the mantas were worth every bit of the trouble in travelling all the way to the Maldives.
但我在水里和蝠鲼一起度过的数小时神奇时光，使马尔代夫之旅一点也不觉得烦扰。
Once again I have been fortunate to witness a stunning performance of nature in the shallow waters of the Blue World.
我又一次幸运地见证了大自然在蓝色世界水域中的精彩表演。
