We arrived in George Town at 8:00 am ready to go on our second excursion, Sting Ray City, where we would get up close and personal with stingrays! Brian had already enjoyed the experience once before while on a cruise with his family. I on the other hand had not. I was pumped and couldn't wait to get out there.
After a quick breakfast we made our way down to the the small boat, a tender, that would take us to the dock. This was the first and only stop we had where we had tender in, so we didn't realize how long it might take. Here is where we ran into a little problem.
Our excursion started at 10:00 am that morning. Once we looked at our tickets a little closer we realized it could take up to 45 minutes to get to dock. We didn't head down to board the tender until about 9:30 am. There was a really long line to get to the tender and then it took a while to get everyone on it. By the time we finally docked it was 10:10 am. We were certain we missed the excursion bus. At first I was really disappointed and sad, but then I thought, "I'm in the Grand Cayman with my husband! How could I possibly be upset right now?". We both came to the conclusion that even if we did miss the boat we'd still have a wonderful time exploring the island. Since we had this positive attitude I think things made a turn for the better.
We checked-in at the information booth and asked if the bus for our excursion had left yet. The little old lady working said she was pretty sure it had, but would double check for us. Next thing we know she's running down to another woman asking her to walkie-talkie the bus driver. At this point Brian was certain they said the bus had left and started to walk away. I waited around for a couple more minutes, and wouldn't you know, our bus was just about to leave! I called out to Brian to come back and we quickly ran and climbed on board the already tightly packed bus. Talk about good luck!
Once our bus made its way to the boat we sailed out to the sea and stopped at the sand bar where all the sting rays came to visit! Some of them were huge and others were much smaller. At first I thought the smaller ones were babies, but I soon found out that the males are small and the females are large. There were also some tropical fish swimming around too!
Everyone took turns holding one of the stingrays. We found out later that the one we held was pregnant! I heard from one of the other travelers that you could feel her pregnant belly even. I wish we would have known!
We gave her a big wet kiss. It was pretty slimy and salty.
Then we let her swim up onto our shoulders. It was so much fun!
If you ever get the chance to swim with stingrays you should definitely go for it! Interacting with them in their natural habitat was amazing.
Miss the first few days of our trip? Check them out here: Part 1: All Aboard, Part 2: Haiti, & Part 3: Jamaica.
Up Next: Cozumel, Mexico
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