Stingray City

The most popular tourist attraction on Grand Cayman (and maybe in all the Caribbean) is a place called Stingray City.  The “city” is really a brace of white sandbars located about a mile offshore in North Sound.  One sandbar (Sting Valley) eases itself into blue depths and is famous for diving.  The other sandbar is quite shallow, with water depths ranging between two and four feet.

Historically, fisherman returning from beyond the protective reef leading into North Sound cleaned their fish in the calm waters at the sandbars.  Naturally, the fish entrails and squid thrown overboard attracted stingrays.  The stingrays quickly developed a habit of gathering at the sandbars anytime they heard a boat engine, expecting an easy meal.

Once somebody realized the stingrays were not opposed to being fed by hand, an entire tourist industry was born.

Today, excursion boats carry pale-bodied tourists out into the sound and drop them into chest-high water, often with food in hand (squid, etc.) for feeding the stingrays.  The stingrays are quite friendly, if not downright puppy-like.  They will quickly gather around anyone dropped in the shallow blue waters.

We will be taking a boat to Stingray City early this morning.  We were scheduled to visit Stingray City two days ago, but our selected guide company had mechanical troubles with their boat.  This tour is pushing our schedule pretty hard—as we will by flying for home on an early morning flight tomorrow.

I have posted a YouTube video of Stingray City this morning.  Hopefully, I can post my own photographs tomorrow before we leave for snowy Montana.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UIGnpKi51c