Imagine yourself standing waist-deep in warm, turquoise Caribbean waters — tropical island views ahead of you, vast ocean behind you, and some of the sea’s most lovable, charming animals around you.
While this may sound like a scene plucked straight out of a dream sequence, such a place exists, and it’s known as Stingray City. A sandbar just a few miles off the coast of Grand Cayman, it’s been a gathering place for stingrays from the island’s surrounding waters for some 50 to 60 years — as well as those keen to get up close and personal with these gentle sea creatures.
Stingray City, Grand Cayman
“There are these wild stingrays with no fence [around them] brushing up against you — you can hold them if you like, interact with them, and it just really is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” says Graeme Brown, operations manager of Cobalt Custom Charters in the Cayman Islands.
Free to come and go as they please, about 130 southern stingrays visit the sandbar on any given day (out of the thousands of stingrays that live around the island), says Brown. The reason some stingrays are brave enough to frequent this area — and, in turn, become familiar and friendly with their human visitors — is due to the simple promise of a meal.
In fact, this is how it all began. Many years ago, there were far more mangroves around the island, creating a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. This made it nearly impossible for fishermen to clean their fish on the dock at the end of the day, because the mosquitoes were relentless, explains Brown. “So, what they did is they started going to [what is now] Stingray City, because it is inside the barrier reef so the water is generally quite calm and protected, and it’s only a couple miles off shore, and there were no mosquitoes out there,” he says. They would throw their scraps into the water, and the stingrays caught on.
“And so, it just evolved — people started putting on snorkel masks and snorkeling with them, and then the stingrays got more comfortable and familiar [with people], so it just led to where it is now,” says Brown.
As you can imagine, the spectacle has drawn quite a crowd over the years — those who have heard of Stingray City may picture a packed, less-than-idyllic scene with as many large tour boats and people as there are stingrays. Much like your Tradewind charter flight to the Cayman Islands, however, private transportation affords a more convenient, seamless, and pleasurable experience, complete with expert crew guidance and intimate, once-in-a-lifetime interaction with the stingrays.
To begin your journey, “you take a boat ride for 20 to 25 mins across this crystal-clear water, and then all of a sudden you stop and you drop anchors,” says Brown. “You get into water that's three to four feet deep, and you're standing in the middle of the sea with an unobstructed view of the entire island, and there are these stingrays swimming up against you.”
While people tend to be a bit hesitant at first, he assures that these stingrays are completely comfortable with humans, and that they’re entirely safe, too. Stingrays have earned a bit of a dangerous reputation, but Brown explains that there’s nothing to fear.
“There are different types of stingrays, and the ones that are at stingray city are southern stingrays,” he says. “A southern stingray has a single barb, which is the part that everybody's afraid of, and it's fixed about halfway up their tail. But the barb is not an attack mechanism whatsoever — it is purely defense.” In fact, the stingrays have no control over it — they can’t eject it, change the angle, or use it as a weapon. It’s contained in a protective sheath, so you don’t have to worry about it brushing past you, too.
It’s designed to ward off predators (specifically, hammerhead sharks), says Brown. “If a shark comes to eat it, the stingray can sense the shark coming [when it’s buried under the sand], and it’ll lift its tail,” he explains. “The shark is going to impale that barb, and it'll hit it with enough force so that that sheath breaks and the barb injects into the shark.” Human visitors, on the other hand, aren’t in danger.
Instead, your experience with the stingrays will likely include snorkeling with them, holding them, petting them, and even kissing them. (Sound like too much? Consider this: It’s said that a stingray kiss brings seven years of good luck.)
Sometimes, these one-on-one stingray interactions are exclusive to private charters, because you can plan your trip around when you’re least likely to run into giant tour boats (which can spook the stingrays away and dampen the mood). Brown explains, “when we go early in the morning or late in the afternoon around sunset, a lot of times we're one of maybe two or three private boats there, so there's 20 people there total and 50 stingrays. It's such a different experience.”
Plus, on a private tour, you’ll have more of a chance to feed them the squid they love. As part of conservation efforts, each boat (regardless of size) is only allowed to bring a one-pound bag of food in order to avoid over-feeding them (which can lead to high cholesterol in the stingrays, and overall a decline in the health of stingray populations).
It’s one of many safeguards put in place to protect these creatures. Developed by the Department of Environment, there is a list of rules, procedures, and proper handling guidelines — for example, water shoes and fins are not allowed because they can harm the stingrays, each boat is required to have a license, and of course, there’s no throwing litter or garbage in the water. Ultimately, Brown says, “the stingrays are wild, so I think the sustainability of it is evident in the very nature that they come back by choice every day.”
It's no wonder the Cobalt Custom Charters crew comes back every day, too — being around these stingrays presents the chance to develop personal relationships with them, and to share those relationships with charter guests. “They get distinct markings as they age and they look certain ways, so we literally know some of them by name and we have a bit of a relationship with them,” he says. “They all have different kinds of attitudes, and they’re playful and gentle… we literally consider them to be underwater puppies.”
This might just be reason enough to make your way to Grand Cayman to take part in this one-of-a-kind experience for yourself.
Swim With Stingrays Grand Cayman
Tradewind offers private charter flights to the Cayman Islands year-round in their fleet of Citation CJ3 jets. To reserve a charter, call us at 1-800-376-7922 or click here. To learn more about Cobalt Custom Charters or to book your Stingray City experience, visit their website at cobaltcustomcharters.com.
All photos courtesy of Cobalt Custom Charters.