Kona Hawaii Big Island Manta Ray night snorkel

Swimming with these Manta Rays at night on the Big Island of Hawaii has always been on my bucket list so back in Sept of 2021 we took a trip to there to finally do it. After booking the trip, it occurred to me that Hanauma Bay on Oahu gets a lot of jelly fish 8 to 12 days after a full moon and from what I remember sometimes they will close it down because of that. I realized the night we booked our Manta Ray snorkel was on the 10 day after a full moon. I called the company and asked about my concern and they acted like they have never heard of that before. I thought it was weird but it made me feel a little better at the time. When we arrived at the boat launch to check in I asked the question again and they assured me that's very unusual and they never have problems or it's very, very rare. He did say if someone was stung by a box jelly fish though it could be life threatening and hurts extremely bad. He said if anyone sees any of those they would 100% get everyone into the boat ASAP and the tour would be over. Plus they would cancel the remaining tours for the rest of the night because where there is 1 they will have many. He talked me into not wearing a wet suit to protect myself from being stung because they never see them. After I got on the boat I asked 1 more time to the crew and they all said the same thing and assured me there is nothing to be concerned about and never heard about the moon phase deal. After being in the water with the Mantas for 20 mins or so guess what floated up right in front of my chest like a foot or 2 away? Yeah, a box jelly fish. I yelled out to the guy running the tour as I was using my hands from a few inches away fanning the water down on it to hopefully push it down and below everyone. After I got it down to about my feet I pulled my legs up and kicked water down on it some more to push it deeper away from everyone. As I was doing this they were yelling at everyone to get back on the boat and the tour was over. After we were back onboard the crew thanked me for helping push it down and away from everyone because they said that could have been a horrible situation if that would have hit someone. I don't know if the moon thing is real but if you are going to do this snorkel in Kona Hawaii I would try and not book it 8-12 days after a full moon just in case. I caught the jelly fish with my gopro while filming and I will upload it on another video post. It's not on this one. Because of the low lighting the video is kind of blurry though. Also we float at the surface holding on to basically a big surfboard looking thing that has high powered lights on it. The lights shoot down and attract plankton which attracts the Manta Rays to feed on the plankton. If you enjoy snorkeling and are in the Kona area I would definitely go do this. Pretty cool experience!