We hopped onboard the High Rider as the sprinkles of rain showers approached. Both boats pulled out of the dock and into the ocean. We then split up, and our boat headed to our first stop… the famed Stingray City.
The rain clouds are encroaching:
The crystal clear turquoise water is gorgeous. Brendan and Savannah enjoy the boat ride:
This particular tour (the half-day stingray and snorkel) consisted of three stops, snorkeling at Coral Gardens, the Barrier reef, and of course Stingray City. It was a three hour tour (a three hour tour…lol) and the cost was $39.99/adult and $27.50 for each of the kids, which was about half the price of going directly through Disney. Our Tour guides were friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. The ride on the boat was comfortable. The High Rider is a 45-footer with a covered cabin and also an upper deck with seating. There was a small marine bathroom. They provided fruit punch, water, and lemonade to drink. The boat ride itself was relatively smooth, and the traveling time between stops was no more than 15 minutes.
Our first stop was Stingray City. Stingray City is in the shallow waters of the northwest corner of Grand Cayman's North Sound. It is just inside a natural channel that passes through the barrier reef and consists of a string of sandbars crossing the North Sound from Morgan Harbor to Rum Point. So the story goes, the rays were attracted to this shallow area where fishermen would stop to clean their fish as they returned from a fishing trip. The rays found the plentiful fish scraps easy pickings’ and flocked en masse to this area. In the late 80’s, it was discovered that these creatures could be fed by hand, and thus the Stingray City attraction was born. The rays that inhabit these parts are the common Southern Atlantic Stingray. And may I add, this is no aquarium. This is the real thing; live wild creatures…so, yes…unlike in the tank in the Stadium at the Tampa Bay Rays games, these guys still have their tail barbs!
We could tell immediately when we were approaching Stingray City. There was a large cluster of boats of all sizes from large fishing boats packed full of people to catamarans and sailboats with small groups to small little charters carrying only a few.
We had about 30 people on ours, and it was a middle of the road group size. It was immediately apparent that there would be no need to fight for territory or for rays, as there was plenty of room and the huge creatures were everywhere! We began to idle in towards the sandbar, and as we approached the shadows you see in the picture below are not patches of underwater vegetation…they are passing rays!
I couldn’t believe how huge they were. Some of these rays had wingspans approaching SIX FEET! There were some smaller shadows under there too. Come to find out those are not (necessarily) the babies. The females are the large ones; the males of the species are significantly smaller, with a wingspan of up to two feet.
It took a few minutes to idle and then float over to a spot, and then anchor down. As soon as we did, excited members of our group were hurling overboard to check out these creatures. Our guides gathered us around, where they would lift up a passing ray for us, showing us her eyes, mouth underneath where they suck food in like a vacuum, gills, tail and barb. Then, individually we each got to hold a ray (with help), kiss the ray, and get a slithery smooth backrub!
Savannah was apprehensive at first, but after a few minutes acclimating to the surroundings she quickly adapted and was soon off by herself snorkeling.
Yes, the huge grey blobs surrounding us are each Rays!!!
Brendan is excited to get in!
Here he is with Ron snorkeling among the rays:
Our group and the rays surrounding us:
Savannah out on her own:
Ron checking out the underwater view:
We were all just enthralled with Stingray City! It was simply amazing standing in the shallow warm water and feeling the rays swoop and swoosh by you, smooth rubbery skins gliding against your legs, sides, backs. The four of us snorkeled around, seeing them interact underwater and camouflaging themselves in the sand, just eyes poking out. I can’t say enough about how much we enjoyed this….we could have stayed there all day.
But of course we couldn’t. We were soon being called back to the boat, and slowly, grudgingly everyone returned and got back onboard. The rain caught up with us, and it was again sprinkling. Luckily there was room in the cabin for us to stash our dry towels (all the Carnival people who lugged their beach towels from home were jealous that Disney provided towels for us!) and our camera. I had borrowed my mom’s diver’s camera to take underwater pictures and somehow had forgotten to bring film, which was very disappointing. There was a camera lady on board, however...filming all of us and the rays. So we would just have to buy the video to make up for our lack of underwater shots!
We drove for a short while in the boat en route to Coral Gardens. At one point the crew let us know we would not be going to Coral Gardens. I don’t remember the reason why, but they told us they had another great place to snorkel, so on we drove. We were alone out to sea, and finally anchored down in the deep, crystal azure water. It was fairly deep for snorkeling, I’d say 15 feet. The kids are great swimmers so I wasn’t worried about them; they jumped off the boat and were GONE.
The dark spots you see underwater here are not rays; they are corals, rocks and vegetation:
I got in the water and I was immediately astonished at the absolutely incredible world below the sea. Everywhere I looked, there were amazing living corals, pulsing and undulating with the tide. Brain coral, urchins, tropical fish of all shapes sizes and shades. The colors were amazing! Bright reds, oranges, blues, greens, every color of the spectrum...it was extrordinary! It looked just like the pictures in magazines! I had just never seen anything like it. I wish I had underwater pictures to share with you, although they wouldn’t do it justice.
It was all too soon when we were summoned back onboard to head to the Barrier Reef. As we rode to the next stop, we shared stories of the fascinating sights we had seen. In a short time we had arrived at the Barrier Reef. We were alone again, the only watercraft in sight. The appearance of this snorkeling spot from the boat was similar to the last stop. Sparkling cerulean waves where you could see right to the bottom. There were more grassy and rocky bottom areas than the other spots, but it wasn’t possible to touch bottom here, anyway. We were cautioned not to attempt to swim over the reef, and off we went. I didn’t really understand what they meant about not attempting to swim “over” the reef until I got underwater and saw it. Then the name “barrier” finally clicked. It was fascinating, a craggy mountain of rocks, corals, plants and sea life that sloped upwards from 20 feet deep to inches from the surface of the water! Now I understood what they meant about not swimming “over it”, anyone who tried to get to other side would have half of their body scraped off by sharp corals and rocks! There were nooks and crannies everywhere, and we saw sea life of all sorts, including an absolutely HUGE lobster hiding in a cave, a spiny sea cucumber, urchins, and a bright green eel! It was simply stunning! As our time was coming to an end, one of our guides jumped down and grabbed a lobster and brought him up for us to see up close:
It was funny watching him crawl back towards his hole really fast after he was released!
Back up on the boat, as we cruised away from the reef and back towards the island, we spotted more rays in the water and even starfish!
See the silhouette of the ray, and the star shapes underwater, those are all starfish!
They stopped the boat and brought up a starfish briefly for everyone to see and touch. It was so neat!!!
The kids enjoying the boat on the way back:
As we drew closer to land, look what we could see in the distance:
The unedited video was playing in a small TV under the cabin as we drove back. It was impossible to get around the crowd watching and laughing at it, and we knew we would buy it anyway. They were able to take our credit card for payment. It cost $60, and we got it about 3 weeks later. It was great, I was so glad we ended up buying it!
Before we knew it, we were back on land, riding the bus back into town. Needless to say, we felt this was an absolutely amazing experience and I recommend it highly!! In fact we can’t wait to go back and do it again!
Up Next: Wasting away again….
I added a couple of other things that were specific to us, and it was up on the back side of our cabin door every day. We referenced it frequently! 
I'm totally cracking up at the visual I have of your embarassment! (sorry!) You should NOT be embarassed! That's absolutely hilarious that we indeed treated it like the traveling reference guide!
They finally did his final 'adult' show in the Walt Disney Theater...SRO.
Put the Wii down and write some more. 
Were you a lurker with us? If so, I hope you got some benefit out of all our chit chat! 
