Frolicking with Cayman Stingrays Is Dive ‘High’

Is it possible for man to feel any more vulnerable than he does under the ocean?

Probably not. So try to picture how I felt on my knees on the ocean floor, staring at three 250-pound stingrays bearing down on me like a squadron of low-flying kamikaze pilots.

There I was, armed with nothing more than a handful of dead squid.

There aren’t many places on earth where you can wake up, look out at a breathtaking sunrise and say, while stretching out on the veranda, “I think I’ll go play with some stingrays today.”

But one of those places is in the Cayman Islands.

And what appears to be an underwater death wish out of a James Bond movie turns into one of the most exhilarating experiences in all of scuba diving. Kneeling in the sand, my legs, shoulders and head were wrapped in the giant wings of these stingrays while feeding them squid as if they were 250-pound puppies.

This wasn’t a marine park. It wasn’t some Caribbean version of Sea World. It was merely a former dumping place for Cayman fishermen that has turned into one of the few places in the world where wild southern stingrays live off hand-feedings from man.

The Cayman Islands, situated about 250 miles south of Cuba, have long been to scuba diving what Vail is to skiing. But until about three years ago, the majestic beauty of stingrays could only be appreciated by a lucky dive down deep.

Now you can see stingrays up close and personal.

I was with Desert Divers, the Las Vegas dive shop that has made biannual trips to this diving mecca for 20 years. For the last three years, feeding stingrays in two main areas--the Sandbar and Stingray City--has been a high priority for visiting divers.

Grand Cayman, the country’s main island, is shaped like an open-mouthed snake head. The two feed sites are in the North Sound, or the equivalent of the snake’s mouth. The north end of the island features a huge wall that reaches depths of 15,000 feet, but farther south the sound has water as shallow as 15 feet.

This is where the stingrays feed.

The 15-minute drive from the Grand Cayman airport to the capital city of George Town, where the dive centers are located, is generously described as simple. Low-lying swamplands are separated by narrow but paved streets with stoplights, well-marked English signs and hotel ads.

If you’re looking for prototype Caribbean culture, with women carrying goods on their heads and men dancing in the streets, you won’t find it here. The Cayman Island culture is unnumbered savings accounts, Buccaneer beer and Tortino’s frozen pizza. The most notable landmark on Grand Cayman’s unremarkable landscape is a turtle farm.

Just outside of George Town are rows and rows of modern, centrally located condominium complexes where many dive groups settle for the week. Dive boats pick up visitors from the beach behind their condos. Grocery stores are close by, stocked with everything from Wheaties to Oreos. The Cayman Islands, with little industry other than banking and diving, import nearly everything. Be prepared to pay $3.50 for a gallon of milk.

George Town itself seems almost like a tropical Zurich. Modern, glass-lined banks fill the city center as men in business suits walk past souvenir shops on their way to 9-to-5 jobs.

The roots of the remarkable stingray phenomenon began about three generations ago. Cayman fishermen would come to these shallow waters and dump fish entrails, heads and other garbage at the end of the day. Stingrays became accustomed to storming the area to feed on the remains. Like Pavlov’s dog, they came flying through the water at the mere sound of a boat’s engine.

Accompanying us on this trip was Guy Pelland, a local marine biologist and underwater photographer who has done everything from organizing stingray feeds to photographing killer whales in Argentina. According to Pelland, about five years ago local dive masters noticed the feeding frenzy that the fishermen caused every day.

The dive masters wondered what would happen if they sent divers down with their own fish. What happened was that the stingrays came, they saw and they devoured. Today, more than 30 dive boats feed the stingrays every week, with sometimes as many as 10 boats appearing in a day.

The generosity, of course, has made the stingrays more than a little dependent.

“Three generations of stingrays have been living on hand-feedings,” Pelland said. “If we stopped feeding, a lot would perish. If we’re not here for two or three days because of bad weather or something, they’re practically jumping in the boat.”

As our boat slowly came to a stop, giant gray stingrays, looking like floating manhole covers, converged around us. As we put our gear on, the stingrays waited. They reminded me of a bunch of hungry puppies waiting by their food dish.

In fact, I thought I saw one of them wagging its tail.

Pelland said to hold the squid in one hand and hide it behind our back or under our leg. Make them hunt for it.

“Don’t try to hide your hand if you don’t have anything in it,” Pelland said. “They aren’t stupid.”

But hiding food from hungry 250-pound beasts is a little nerve-wracking. In fact, sitting in sand and watching the first wave of stingrays fly toward you is downright eerie. You don’t even notice how beautiful they are, how graceful they fly through the water with their wings flapping like an eagle through the Rocky Mountain air.

They really are birds of the sea, but what keeps pounding at your head--and heart--is that these rays have six-foot wingspans with deadly, dagger-like, six-inch stingers on their tail.

I remember my first sensation when three stingrays converged. One was looping over my legs, another gently bumped my chest with its flat nose, its eyes looking at me forlornly. Or was that hunger I saw? I couldn’t really tell because another had literally wrapped its wings around my face, its suction-like mouth opening and closing just inches from my mask.

My first sensation wasn’t fear, it was warmth. Silky, smooth warmth. The white bottom of the stingrays felt like a foam-rubber pad and was as smooth as a silk blouse. Softly rubbing their underbellies, I felt like I was handling an old quilt I favored as a child.

Then I suddenly remembered that these beasts each weigh about 250 pounds. I placed my hands under the ray and pushed. It wouldn’t budge. Even in the weightlessness of the salty sea, I couldn’t move it.

I figured this was a pretty good time to feed them.

I pulled my hand out from behind my back and held out a piece of squid. With a quickness usually associated with harpoons, the ray in front of me darted down a few inches and grabbed the meat with its suction-like mouth.

It grabbed part of my finger, and I let out a yelp through my regulator. I don’t know why; it didn’t hurt. The ray’s teeth are deep inside the body, about six inches behind the mouth.

In fact, the more I studied these creatures, the more fascinating they became. If you think the way they fly through the water is intriguing, you ought to see them give birth. They do it in full flight, giving life to about 12 at a time. The offspring resemble little cigars with wings.

After an hour of feeding these remarkable creatures, you can’t help but feel a bit attached. I felt a little like a kid making his first visit to a petting zoo. I guess that’s why there’s so much growing local support for stingrays, which are embroiled in a long-standing controversy.

Simply put, stingrays are slowly becoming endangered in these parts as local fishermen find them more appealing as bait.

“It’s laziness,” Pelland said. “They pick up some conch (meat), drop it off the boat and in a matter of minutes, they’ve got a stingray on the line. It’s extremely easy to catch a stingray.”

Many times, the stingrays’ faces are torn up or they’ve swallowed the hook and starve to death. Pelland said fishermen don’t care. They just cut off the wings and use them to catch fish.

“For us,” Pelland said, “it’s like going into your back yard and shooting your dog.”

Pelland said a local group, with the diving community as a base, has placed a measure on the local ballot to curb stingray fishing in these waters. The diving community, however, doesn’t have the clout of local fishermen who have lived the same way for 300 years.

The measure has been voted down four times.

“It’s simple economics,” Pelland said. “What Stingray City and Sandbar have done for the country’s economy is phenomenal. Photographers, snorkelers, divers--the interest in stingrays has brought incredible amounts of money to the country.

“A lot could be done. The public could see what is happening and stop it right away, or wait and say later, ‘Shoot, I should have said something.’ ”