Snorkeling and Stingrays

I got the film from our water-proof camera back yesterday.  I was major bummed that most of our pictures did not turn out!!!  Seriously, we had 27 pictures on our film and only about 11 of those were half decent.  We bought it from our tour guides for $15, and I am sure if I look I will see it on the shelves at Dollar Tree! It's obviously a cheap piece, so I shouldn't be surprised.

We started off swimming with the rays at a sand reef in Grand Cayman.  I guess the story of why there are so many stingrays in this area goes something like this:  hundreds of years ago fisherman would go out to this area to fish.  They would gut the fish they caught and through the guts and bones of the side of the boat.  The smell off the fish guts would attract the stingrays.  So over time the stingrays began to associate the sound of a boat with food (classical conditioning at it's finest!).   The sting rays are completely wild; they are not trapped or caged in the reef at all, they simply hear the boats coming and swim over to the reef expecting food. Despite the guides telling us over and over again that stingrays are harmelss, and that their stinger is simple a defensive mechanism, It was pretty intimidating at first, especially because they look super creepy.  They feel like slimy mushrooms and have big eyes that protrude out of the side of their head.  After holding a few of them I started to realize he was right, and they are very gentle creatures. 

After stingray city, we took a short ride to a famous snorkeling site called Coral Gardens and got to see some pretty sweet fish.  Dan was having the time of his life diving down to the floor of the reef to get a closer look at all the corral and fish.  I am not the greatest swimmer (you might recall me almost dying on our honeymoon in Hawaii.  I was definitely not taking that chance again), so I admired things from the surface of the water!

I was a little unsure of what was below me lol

Dan and I with one of the guides and a giant stingray

they would just swim across the sand.  They were quick little buggers too.

I'm not very educated when it comes to fish, so I have no idea what this is, but this one was a lot prettier in real life

Again, much prettier in real life, but it's one of three pictures of the fish underwater that even turned out, so I am still posting it lol!!!

Despite the guides telling us the rays were harmless, it was still quite an adrenalin rush to hold them!!!

Us with another ray and our guide

Scuba-Dan

As I mentioned in my previous post, we also snorkeled in Cozumel.  This was by far the best snorkeling of my life!  There were a least double the amount of fish that we saw at Coral Gardens.  We saw a barracuda, an eel, more sting rays, and hundreds of other fish that I have no idea the kind.  The guides would come over to me and drop a bunch of fish food and the fish would just swarm me!!!  They were every where! I got to touch a bunch of fish which was cool.

By the time we got to Cozumel we only had three pictures left on our water proof  camera (we weren't expecting the snorkeling there to be a great as it was, and we also thought we would have so many more pictures of the fish we had taken in Cayman), so we didn't get pics of the fish underwater here.

Snorkeling in Cozumel with a star fish.