Extended bonus coverage from the Nov/Dec 2001 issue, pages 78-79. The underside of a stingray showing the mouth. The following are my field notes which have been compiled from multiple visits to this extraordinary site over several years. LOCATION: Situated on the north side of Grand Cayman Island in a channel 50 yards inside the barrier reef of North Sound. DEPTHS: Average depth of 12 feet. Bottom profile ranges from 5 feet to 14 feet. SURFACE CONDITIONS: Generally calm, some mornings glassy. No ocean swells and just light wind. North Sound is an excellent place for boat anchorage. UNDERWATER VISIBILITY: Exceptionally clear on an incoming tide. Underwater visibility of 80 to 100 feet plus and turquoise blue color. Visibility reduced on outgoing tide. Water color turns from pale to medium green and visibility can diminish to 30 feet. CURRENT: There is a slight current from the channel during normal tides. The current increases with the full moon phase. It can get strong just after a storm that may have pushed tons of water into the North Sound, but this is a rare event. BOTTOM PROFILE: The site is a flat sand bottom with a sparse sprinkling of solitary coral heads. The sand is small grain (powdery) in some areas and heavier gain in others. Nearby, there are a few patches of eelgrass. Coral heads are covered with a healthy growth of sea whips, sea fans, hard corals, sponges and juvenile reef fishes. THE PHENOMENON: A resident colony of some 25 to 50 exceptionally tame stingrays immediately respond to the sounds of a boat engine being gunned and the anchor being dropped overboard. These rays will come around the boat ¿ often rising to the surface right at the stern dive platform. As divers descend to the bottom, the excited stingrays swarm around them, begging to be petted, stroked and fed. Divers are able to hand feed the rays, and these remarkable fish will actually line up for the feeding session. SPECIES: The remarkably tame stingrays are members of the Southern Stingray species, Dasyatis Americana. They range in size from babies with 12-inch wingspans to adults measuring 4 feet across. There are some larger adults with 5-foot wingspans. It is now believed that the majority of resident stingrays are females. STINGER: The stingray was once believed to be a very dangerous marine creature because of a large barb or stinger located one-third the way along the top of its whip-like tail. The barb is a sharply pointed saw tooth edged stinger some 2 to 3 inches in length. The sting can cause pain, swelling and possibly an allergic reaction. The stingray appears to use its barb as a defensive weapon only. Few divers have ever received a sting from the stingray¿s barb during the hundreds of thousands of encounters that have taken place over the last 15 years. The stingrays regard the divers as friends and a source of food. When swimming around the divers, the stingrays deliberately point their tail (and barb) away from the diver. NATURAL FOOD: The stingray is normally a bottom feeder who prefers to work in sandy areas. They normally eat small clams, oysters, scallops and other types of shellfish. They have powerful jaws that can crack open hard-shelled mollusks. They grind up the shell and meat fragments, spitting out the hard bits and consuming the rest. The stingray also dines on other bottom dwelling creatures such as shrimp and worms. PREDATORS: The stingray¿s greatest natural enemy is the shark. Divers have observed several stingrays with short tails or no tail at all. These missing parts are the result of a stingray being chased by a shark that eventually bit off the tail, but nothing more. The ray can live quite well without and dive masters can point various City residents known as: Stubby, Spike, NoTail and so on. DIVER REACTION: Although Stingray City is a very safe dive in very shallow water; it is regarded as a thrilling experience. New divers visiting Stingray City for the first time find this to be a mind- blowing encounter. No sooner do they enter the water and clear their masks, they see a herd of flapping stingrays charging down upon them. The rays circle the diver in tight formation like Custer¿s Last Stand. Soon they are swooping in ¿ brushing, bumping, nuzzling and jostling the diver in hopes of a food handout. The rays are competitive between themselves and often execute acrobatic maneuvers ¿ tightly turning, twisting and looping right before the divers eyes. There is so much action, happening so quickly that most divers find it difficult to regain their composure. Then, the gang departs as suddenly as it arrived ¿ rushing off to another boat or another group of arriving divers. Bottom life becomes quiet and serene, as the diver wonders to himself, ¿who was that anyway?¿ INTELLIGENCE: Scientists do not presently know the true level of intelligence possessed by a stingray. It was previously thought that the stingray was a fairly dumb animal, as it is related to the shark family. However, divers and sea aquariums have discovered stingrays to be highly intelligent. They respond to subtle signals associated with food. They take special care not to bite or sting the divers. And they demonstrate a pecking order within their own ranks. ALTERNATE STINGRAY SITES: With the growing popularity of Stingray City, other dive sites began to develop within North Sound. Perhaps the most popular site is Sand Bar, where the ocean bottom rises to the surface at low tide. Sand Bar is primarily used by cruise ship passengers and snorkeling groups, as visitors can wade in waist-deep water and encounter the stingrays. Stingray Alley is another dive site located right up against the North Sound barrier reef. It is a shallow area populated with small corals. The stingrays are just as friendly and visitors often encounter small nurse sharks as well. The stingrays appeared to have formed family groups of 12 to 18 rays, occupying the various dive site locations and moving from boat-to-boat, visiting all the dive groups. They have established a natural distribution pattern, so that every site has abundant stingrays for divers to admire. DIVE TRIPS: For information about dive trip to Stingray City, click on the home page below.