Surprisingly to me, kissing stingrays has become a popular thing. On two recent cruises in the Caribbean, I was offered the opportunity to get 7 years of good luck by kissing a stingray in multiple ports including Grand Turk, Grand Cayman and Princess Cays. As a new year quickly approaches, why not lock in some good luck?
“Gibb’s Cay and Stingray Encounter“ is a popular excursion on Grand Turk. After a quick boat ride from the dock to Gibb’s Cay, the captain did a few circles before beaching to let the resident population of friendly “sea puppies” know that it was soon to be show time since these stingrays associate the sound of boat engines with feeding time. Visitors to this uninhabited cay have been diving with stingrays for decades. Guests disembarked onto the beautiful fine white sandy beach and had the option to snorkel out to the nearby reef, beachcomb, or wait their turn to pet and possibly kiss a stingray. Needless to say, my family opted to do it all.
Keep in mind that these are wild stingrays that choose or choose not to participate in these human interactions. They have been habituated to humans and rewarded with food for interacting, but some days they just don’t feel the love. Other days, guests are swarmed with hungry and amorous stingrays according to our guides. On the day we hoped to kiss a stingray or two, only one fellow showed up to pucker up. We kept him busy. With only a dozen guests on our shore excursion, everyone had plenty of opportunities to kiss the stingray and improve their luck.
Grand Cayman is home to Stingray City, a series of shallow sandbars in the North Sound where southern stingrays are found in abundance and visitors can interact with them. Each day up to 100 large southern stingrays congregate waiting to be fed as they have been for almost 15 years. Visitors disembark their assorted vessels and enter the chest-high water to meet the stingrays. The boats' proprietors bring along with them pails of bite-sized squid meat, which they dispense by hand to the creatures, thus attracting dozens of the stingrays to the feeding spot. There are several companies that offer Stingray City excursions, one of the best is Viator.
On this three-stop tour, you can swim among some of the largest stingrays and most colorful reefs surrounding the Cayman Islands. In Stingray City the highlight of the excursion is when you pose near stingrays for the perfect photo opportunity. At the final stop of Starfish Snorkel, relax and snorkel in shallow water and view various species of starfish.
Princess Cruises offers a “Stingray Beach Encounter” on all their cruises visiting Princess Cays. Princess Cays is an exclusive port of call and private beach owned by the Carnival Corporation located on the southern portion of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Shore excursions must be booked in advance.
Participants enter an enclosed beach and lagoon area that is fenced from the sea and nearby beaches. The 11 stingrays that call this enclosure home have been trained to interact safely with humans. Some have their barbs intact while others lost their barbs before they were rescued from certain extinction and relocated to this safe habitat. They have been hand fed and nurtured by their trainers to interact daily with humans. Our guide knew her stingrays by name and temperament. Those who wanted a kiss got one and everyone experienced the silky- smooth skin of the stingrays as they rubbed against our legs like puppies.
I recommend booking one of the last time slots. Our group had only 6 people, so we were outnumbered by stingrays who encouraged us to pet and feed them. Snorkeling gear including vests and water shoes are provided and must be worn. Exploration of the protected reef is encouraged. The minimum age required to participate is 6 years old.
For those who want even more luck, kiss a sea cucumber for 14 years of luck if you kiss it on the mouth. But beware because only a marine biologist can tell one end from the other!
These adventures will make you hungry, so before you leave the Bahamas, make sure to try a conch fritter. The conch (pronounced konk) is the national food of the Bahamas and not to be missed!
Some things to know before you kiss or pet a stingray:
1. Wear water shoes – sand is soft, but critters aren’t
2. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle – stingrays bury themselves in the sand and you do NOT want to step on one as their natural response is to defend themselves with a very sharp barb
3. Keep your fingers away from their mouths – their teeth are sharp, and they can crush shells with their jaws
4. Pet them towards their tail – their backbones can lacerate your hand if you rub them the wrong way
5. After feeding a stingray, DO NOT wipe your hands on your body – the smell of fish will encourage a stingray to try to eat it resulting in a very nasty suction mark on your fishy body part
Despite these warnings, it is relatively safe amongst the stingrays. Most animals only attack to defend themselves and otherwise are curious to interact with humans. During my excursions, both elderly and young guests enjoyed the opportunity to pet the sea puppies and many were brave enough to kiss them. Whether lucky or not, an encounter with stingrays is a memorable experience.
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