Often times I hear divers talking about the deepest dive they have done or the fastest current or describing some other feature that made a dive unusual. Sometimes divers look down their noses at dives that are less than 60 feet. After all any certified diver can go to 60 feet, you are supposed to be an advanced certified diver to go deeper.

Nevertheless, stingray city in Grand Cayman which is 12 foot in-depth to the sand is pretty spectacular.
The fishermen used to clean their catchs just outside the mouth of the harbor and throw the remains overboard. Rays oftentimes would feed on the remains and would gather for a meal when they heard the fisherman’s boats heading back to the harbor.

I dove Stingray City with Divetech, which is an excellent shop in Grand Cayman. Before the dive the briefing advised that we would want to be over-weighted by 4 to 5 pounds. (I added 4 pounts to my usual 12 pounds). We would drop to the sand and stay in one place while the ray wrangler would feed the rays. The rays would be southern rays which would range in size from about a foot across the widest part of their body to well over three feet across their body. We would all dive air as opposed to nitrox (oxygen enriched air) because nitrox would not change our bottom times because the dive was so shallow. Once we were down we would get into more or less a circle around the ray wrangler.

Once we were all on the bottom, and even before the wrangle arrived, the rays started to approach our group. The rays seemed a bit shy at first but slowly became more willing to swim near our group. When the wrangler decended with the chopped-up squid in a water bottle more rays came to see us. For about forty minutes the wrangler would move around and the rays would follow her in hopes that a small bit of squid would be squirted out of the feed bottle and they would get a snack. Along with the rays we also were jointed by yellow tail snappers and other fish. During the dive we saw at least a dozen rays who would swim around and put on a show for us. After the wrangler went back up to the boat we were allowed to swim around several large coral heads to see the local fish life. Within a few moments I had found lobsters and other creatures to observe and film. In order to get close to the lobster I dropped to the sand and crawled up close to the coral head to film the lobster. When I backed out from the coral head a weight pocket fell out of my bcd. I was so enthralled with looking for creatures, I didn’t miss it and only knew it was missing when one of the divers handed it back to me when we were on the boat. I guess I didnt’ need that extra four pounds after all.

Most of the tourists head to the sand bars with chest-high water to interact with the stingrays. The boats’ proprietors bring along with them pails of chunked-up squid meat, which they dispense by hand to the animals, thus attracting dozens of the creatures to the feeding spot. But for me the more interesting opportunity is to dive to 12 feet and hang out until the southern rays arrive and watch the action. To me what really makes the dive unique is the interaction with so many southern rays. On most dives, if I find one ray during the dive that usually means it has been a good dive; To see dozens of rays during a single dive is a special treat.

The grace and ease with which rays move through the water is best seen in video. It reminds me that they live there, and we are just guests.