Stingrays!!

After my beautiful sunrise I headed further north up the coast to visit Dive Tatapouri. The company has been feeding stingrays off this reef for the past 20 years. The little spot they have on the beach is pretty nice too!

 

At low tide you can walk pretty far out on this reef area without the water getting much more than two feed deep. They provide you with big green waders and a bamboo pole to keep your balance with. They talk to you about the different species of stingrays that you will see and explain the best ways to interact with them. I was even able to take my camera right out in the water. Since this has been going on here for so long the stingrays and all sorts of other things were already gathering when we got out there.

 

 

The first things that we saw were Yellowtail Kingfish. We were given bait to feed the stingrays and warned that the Kingfish would actually jump out of the water and try and eat it out of your hands if you were not careful. They were really big fish and were swimming right up against your legs. It felt really weird through the waders. The bait was a halfed fish... and the guide would laugh if you were squeamish about having a fish head in your hand!

 

The first stingrays that showed up were the smaller Eagle Rays. They were mostly females and many were actually pregnant. I had a hard time counting how many were actually all round the group but the guide knew them all by name! He pointed out specific ones and noted their different colors, spots and even some scars that he would recognize them with.

 

After we had all been given at least one piece of fish and fed either the Kingfish or and Eagle Ray the larger stingrays started to show up. They were darker and bigger Shorttail Stingrays.

 

The whole time the kingfish were still trying to get food and as well as seagulls that were flying right around our heads hoping for a bite. Seemed like there was always something at your  feet to look at!

 

This was the guide Henry. He was pretty entertaining!

 

It was surprising how far out we were and yet how shallow the water was standing on the rocks. They refer to it as a reef but it seemed to be just rocks we were walking and standing on.

 

In this one picture there are three eagle rays, one short tail stingray and a kingfish!

I fed both an eagle ray and a short tail stingray. The short tail ones would actually swim up your waders a little so that you could feed them!

 

I thought it was crazy just how many little tiny fish were swimming around there too. I figured they would be worried with the bigger stingrays and kingfish since they were pretty much the same size as our bait!

 

 

The weather ended up clouding up and starting to rain so we went back but we all got to feed at least three pieces of fish. It was really an interesting morning! I fed both kinds of stingrays and lost one piece to the kingfish :) I was pretty happy with the way that my pictures turned out too!