MUSHY'S MOOCHINGS: SWIMMING WITH THE STINGRAYS

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

SWIMMING WITH THE STINGRAYS

So long Steve – like the animals, I will miss you!

Crickey! Had we known then (2002) we might have had second thoughts about swimming with the Stingrays while we were in the Grand Cayman’s. I remember them feeling like cool firm jell-o in the warm seawater. Our only safety instruction was to shuffle our feet along the sand as we moved about the chest deep water. Dozens of them swarmed around us looking for the handouts the guides offered.

One young woman screamed from the first brush against her legs! She somehow climbed up around her husband’s neck and almost drown him before they could wrestle her back up onto the boat.

11 comments:

*Goddess* said...

Yikes! I had no idea those things were so big.

How ironic that something like that would kill him when you consider all the times he was around gators and crocs....weird.

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

I would say the one that got ol' Steve was considerably larger. There are some species that are large enough for people to hang on their backs as they glide through the ocean.

I heard today that the barb hit the only 3" area of his body that would have killed him. Anywhere else and he would have survived. You just have to say, based on that, that it was his time to go.

Ron Southern said...

Or that he was shit out of luck! It's regrettable when someone so alive dies. The brain reels, though it didn't matter to me emotionally whether he lived or died. Though to me he was just someone famous, he's the kind of fella that people miss.

FHB said...

I'll miss his shows, but they'll be broadcasting them non stop from now on I think, so we probably really won't have a chance to miss him. Still, very bizarre, and very sad for his family, but they had to know it was comin' some day.

I just wonder, who's stinger was posing more of a danger to the public on the occasion pictured here?

Becky said...

I just commented this on someone else's blog who was talking about swimming with sting rays that I'm such a chicken that there's no way that I could've done it. I'm way too fearful of animals.

theWatchList said...

There should be no danger swimming with stingrays. The one that got him was probably 7'. Anything too much bigger than that and it's my understand you are probably looking at a different type of ray (and if it isn't a sting ray, it doesn't have the barb). It's a good thing he didn't have his baby with him this time. Dangling a baby like a dead chicken doesn't do anything for rays though like it might for crocs.

FHB said...

Actually looks like fun. A little weirder than swimming with dolphins, but fun. Too bad you didn't get a shot of the lady goin' nuts. That would be funny.

NotClauswitz said...

The Aquarium on Maui has a whole bunch of different rays, some pretty gigantic - and you can walk through these huge, clear, tubes that go through the giant tank as they swim over and around you, pretty cool. Dolphins are horny and just want to screw you.

FHB said...

Went to one like that in Perth, Australia once, back in the early 90s. Was very cool. And thanks for the warning about the dolphins.

phlegmfatale said...

Wow, it DOES look so cute and harmless. I guess that's why they called it a freak accident. Actually, come to think of it, I'm going to have to blog something about this.

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

Wow you have been busy visiting this morning. Glad to have you come and stay a while.

The ones we were petting were at least a quarter the size of the one that got old Steve, but they all have stingers.