Grand Cayman: The Redemption

The first stop of the whole trek was in Grand Cayman. If you recall, the last time I was here, Ellen ditched me by hopping on that chicken caravan and leaving me to the two powerhouse trinket shoppers, all day, in a bathing suit. Yes, I’m still mad.

This go round, Ellen and Chris hopped off the boat early in the morning to go scuba diving. Us other three were simply, not invited. This worked out though because Mom would never intentionally submerge her head into any body of water and Dad and I can’t go too far underwater because of our dainty ears. This is one of the most devastating aspects of my entire life. You know how much I love water! And animals! Ugh. How I’d love to swim with them. Just be one for a day.

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, Grand Cayman. Us three met those other two in the center of town a little before lunchtime. This is where I was shot in the eye with a rubber band by a local girl.

“That hit you?“ she asked with no ounce of concern.

“Yeah” I said, covering my left eye with my fingers.

“I sorry.” she said, shifting her attention back to her paper work.

Then the five of us sat on a bench for thirty minutes. We were waiting on a bus, quite silently I might add. No one had much to say at all and I was fuming and pressing on my eye. When the bus did finally come it drove us through town and out the other side to a colorful marina that was packed full of beautiful sailboats. We hopped off the bus and boarded a tacky, multicolored boat with about thirty other people. We plowed through the brilliant, turquoise water for thirty minutes and once we arrived to the middle of nowhere, we jumped off of the boat and into the waist deep water.

And then we waited. Just a few minutes went by before we were surrounded by stingrays. Really big stingrays. And some tiny little guys too. Tons of them. And so we spent some time petting and holding them. Lifting them high out of the water until they spit water at your face to put them back down. Stingrays are sweet, blasé creatures. I say this well aware that the stingrays I encountered must strategically spend everyday here on this sandbar, waiting for the tacky boat full of sun-block marinated humans to show up and feed them bits of squid and have Stingray Love TIme. I imagine I only encountered some of the world's happiest stingrays. Nevertheless, they are still slightly frightening by no fault of their own and have a way of sneaking up on you and brushing past your ankles when you least expect it.

They’re rubbery and smooth. They feel like really old rubberbands. We learned that they are in fact, gentle creatures that don’t want to stab their barb through your body anymore than you wish to be stabbed. They only get the one the barb so they don’t want to waste it. Stingrays also have a major blind spot on account of their eyes being so far apart and pointing relatively different directions. Therefore it is important to stay right in front of the little guys so they can see you with both eyes.

Ol’ Steve Irwin see, he snuck up behind a stingray and lifted her high up out the water. Well that poor stingray went into panic mode and stabbed ol' Steve right through the heart but only cause Steve was holding her there. They aren’t trained killers but they sure don’t like being startled.

The only aspect that contributed some danger to our day was the rough seas we were standing in. It was choppy out and our location on a sandbar in the center of a huge bay made for some sizable waves that blew us around, crashing us into each other and our bright-eyed tour guide whose name I couldn’t understand. He had enchanting eyes though. The trouble was that all of our flailing, stomping legs made for dangerous roads for the stingrays. If you step on one you could break its little spine or scare it enough to barb you.

“Just keep your feet planted.” Bright-eyes told us as the water dragged us farther out to sea. With the rubbery rays weaving around our ankles it proved to be very difficult to not step on them. Ellen seemed a bit nervous about the stingrays and spent much of her time just floating, afraid to step on one or be caught off guard.

One woman, probably in her sixties, continuously let out bloodcurdling screams anytime a ray showed up unannounced. She would stomp and splash and scream and while it made all of us laugh, she was completely obnoxious. Brighteyes rolled his bright eyes at her as he had just warned her about causing a scene. 

We each got to hold a big stingray, except Ellen who did not wish to love on one. They’re very heavy. Brighteyes told us that females are always significantly larger than males and the one we held weighed about sixty pounds. Just before it was time to hop back in the boat, Brighteyes had me make a fist and he then stuffed a hunk of squid into the center of it and pushed my hand under water. I waited nervously. Then Brighteyes dangled a stingray over my hand and that little guy sucked the squid out of my fist with such force that I feared for the life of my fingers. It was world’s strongest vacuum cleaner mouth. It was very unexpected and kind of adorable.

As we rounded out our Stingray Love Time, some local fella blew into a conch shell and told everyone it was time to get back on their boats. The rough waves made this difficult and people were wiping out right and left. Slippin' and sliding' and laughing riotously. 

Gosh I miss the stingrays. I didn't want this to be over.