Visiting the Cayman Islands without going to Stingray is like not visiting the Caymans at all. The stingrays are so tame that they have become one of the main attractions in the entire Caribbean. These friendly rays can be found both at Stingray City and at a shallower site known as The Sandbar.Visiting either site is a wonderful adventure. Just be careful of the bright sun directly overhead, burning into every exposed part of your body. Thousands and thousands of folks have visited these sites in the past ten years without being "ripped to shreds by killer, man-eating rays". You'll probably survive it as well. If you are going to get in the water, here are a couple hints for a more pleasurable experience.Feeding stingrays has been compared to feeding a horse, while underwater - watch your fingers. Your guide will probably have cut-up bits of squid or ballyhoo fish to feed to the rays and will give you a piece or two at a time to feed them.
Remember, this isn't Fido - you can't just toss the fish up in the “air” and expect the ray to jump and catch it. Also remember, the ray hunts by sense of smell so you can lead a ray around for quite a while with just one piece of bait - actually just long enough to get bushwhacked by another ray coming in from another angle. When you finally decide to feed a ray your piece of bait, hold it in the palm of your hand with your fingers pointed away from your hand so that your palm is very flat or bent back. The ray will come in and just vacuum that bit of fish right up.
Many folks just let go of the bait the first time or two - the ray misses the fish and it gets taken by one of the ever-present Cayman Piranha (Sergeant Majors and Yellow Tail Snappers). These fish are actually the real threat here, they can come and give you a rather sharp bite on the finger to help encourage you to give them the bait.
If you don't want to feed the rays, keep your hands to yourself. If you get nervous, just fold your arms across your chest and cover each hand with your opposite arm. You should understand that sometimes the rays are rambunctious and can actually bump into divers in attempting to get fed. Remember that they live on the bottom and hunt by smell, so you can either just back off from the group who's feeding them and observe from a distance or go back up to the surface and watch from up there for a bit.
Be sure not to wear dive gloves while diving or snorkeling with the rays. The fabric of the gloves can easily strip off the layers of protective mucus from the ray's skin and expose it to potentially deadly infection. There is absolutely no reason or need to wear gloves at Stingray City or The Sandbar.
If you dive or deep snorkel, wear a "skin" or light wet-suit to protect from stingray "hickies". Stingrays cannot see what they are feeding upon and they eat by sucking the food into their mouths between two hard dental plates. Sometimes they can get confused by all the feeding going on, and since they don't feed by sight, they just start sucking as they approach the food source (divers). It's not bad intent or rude manners on their part, after all they're there to feed - you're the one who's on this higher "inter-species contact" level - they're just after a free lunch!
Keep in mind that these are wild animals and will not take kindly to folks trying to ride them or pull their tails. They are capable of inflicting a rather serious injury with the stinger on their tail if you attempt to ride or harass them physically. On the other hand, while rather forward in their feeding habits, they are not aggressive animals and will not try to ride you or pull your tail. We recommend visiting Stingray City or The Sandbar in the Cayman Islands as a wonderful adventure!
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