I was in Florida on business (not going to trash Florida here, it’s trashy enough already) and had ample frequent flyer miles to take a side trip, the destination being determined by where Northwest air was flying. Anywhere in the Caribbean sounded good as it was close and I’d never been there before. You know how those pesky free flights work . . . and in this case they worked by flying me to the Cayman Islands.
Any holiday on an island promises to be filled with idle hours. It’s kinda the point of island travel. But I’m not a real ‘just lay on the beach’ kind of guy, even for just a few days so soon after checking into my beachside hotel I was looking for things to do. And there’s not a lot of choices on Grand Cayman. Out of the touri outings that seemed to be popular, the one stand out choice was an afternoon of swimming with stingrays.
Now I’m not a total novice when it comes to the ocean and sea life, and I knew just how painful a sting from even a small stingray can be, but I checked around with the experts on the island (the local bartender at the dive I decided to hang out at that night) and was assured that in this case they were quite tame and of no concern. Good enough for me, I signed up the next morning for that afternoon’s trip.
Swimsuited, goggle and six pack of beer in hand, I showed up that afternoon to meet my fellow excursion goers, nice small group of six, three couple, two of whom were on their honeymoon (which kinda cancelled each other out) and we were soon onboard for the half hour ride out to a sandbar in the middle of the ocean. This viewing / meeting spot is quite shallow, like three to eight feet, so you don’t even really have to swim, more like stand around.
This is an area in Grand Cayman’s shallow North Sound where fishing boats used to stop and clean their catch. This meant that a lot of fish guts and trimmings were thrown overboard into the sound. Both fish and rays discovered the free dining spot and began to congregate there. Divers soon noticed and began diving the spot. And of course, they brought food for the rays. The smart rays (and the fish, too) realized that they could get an easy meal from the divers bearing gifts and Stingray City was born!
Quick instructions from the tour operator: don’t grab the ray’s tail or run your hand down their back, because the barb is on the back of the tail, and we were each given some squid to feed the stingrays. Then over the side of the boat where the rays were waiting for us. They were a lot bigger than I had expected - some as big as half my body or even more, and quite wide! The women immediately began screaming as the rays swim right up to you and brush against your body (was fun watching the newlywed guys trying to act macho when they too were a bit apprehensive about having these huge creatures take them on!)
There were soon literally hundreds of them swimming around, going under your feet, brushing up against your leg. The creatures are very friendly . . and very hungry, they’d slurp the squid off the palm of your hand like a vacuum. Surprisingly, they were quite soft, kinda felt like velvet. Once the food was all gone, the rays kept looking for more and you occasionally had to fold our arms tightly against your body to keep them from nibbling on your fingers!
It was really terrific to see these creatures up close. Though I hear now that this has become such a popular excursion that you spend you time with more of your fellow touri than with stingrays and that it is so crowded most never get close to a ray.
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