No. 14 It Came From the Deep

Hawaii / Poor Parenting Decision Number 32,489

When I signed my family of four up to swim with manta rays in Hawaii, I wasn’t especially well versed on their scientific attributes. I thought of a manta ray as another version of the sting ray—diamond shaped and made of bouncy meat—like a flexible water kite, or a water-breathing rubber kitchen mat.

Scientists had probably called mantas by a different …