Stingrays

If you haven't already heard, Steve Irwin (a.k.a the Crocodile Hunter) died today by a blow to his heart from a stingray barb. When I read this, I immediately thought of the caribbean cruise I took with my family three years ago. On this cruise my family and I participated in an excursion where we actually swam with stingrays. Now these stingrays were not in captivity like the ones you see at Sea World. We traveled miles out into the ocean to a sand bar called "Stingray City" to swim with these stingrays pictured below.



No, the black spots in the ocean are not rocks...those are stingrays. And yes, people are swimming with them.



Here is my mom swimming with one...



And my sister petting one...



And me, not looking real happy about the whole experience...



And just to give you an idea of how close we were to these creatures and their deadly barbs, here is an underwater shot...



Crazy isn't it? I'm kinda glad I had the chance to do this three years ago, because there's no way in $#@% I'm doing that now.