I had been to Georgetown, Grand Cayman every other week when I was working on the Century, but we always had to tender. There’s no dock and the tender always took a long time and crew had to wait till all the guests had gone. It was always such a hassle, I only ever got off once and I didn’t have time to do much. Well this time I was determined to make the most of it and I did.
Swimming with the stingrays is the thing to do in Grand Cayman. You have to be taken by boat to the middle of this sandbar they call Stingray City. I went with a group of the crew and got a picture of some of the tattooed crew sitting at the front of the boat. It seems like all the crew on ships have tattoos. Don’t worry, mom, I’m not going to get one...yet...tee hee.
Fishermen started feeding the stingrays at Stingray city back in the 80s and now they all congregate there and get fed and petted by tourists. They are still wild, but they’ve become used to human contact and they are very tolerant of people touching and holding and yes even kissing them. They say it’s good luck to kiss a stingray, but I think the locals just say that to have a good laugh at all the tourists who do it. Well, laugh away because I did it.
Our guide brought a bucket of little squid and let us feed the stingrays. You just held a piece in your hand and put it under their mouth and they sucked it out like a vacuum. Well after a while they all smelled the juicy squid and they would swarm around us and brush against our legs. Steve got freaked out and curled into a fetal position in Elisabeth’s arms and I was there to get that picture. I also got a good shot of the underside of a stingray one of the guides was holding. And Steve got a great picture of me petting one underwater. This was a truly amazing and sometimes creepy experience.
Katie
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