I woke up this morning and my bee sting finger was so swollen I couldn’t bend it. It doesn’t hurt, just a little itchy and tight feeling. Hopefully it wasn’t a poisonous bee ha ha. The more I looked into, I think it was a “killer bee”. It looked just like one.
Either way, my middle finger is swollen and red. I am watching to make sure the redness doesn’t start creeping up my hand with a systemic infection. Fingers crossed (except my non-bendable finger)!
I don’t mind flipping Andy and Paul off to show them my swollen finger. Ha!
Today’s activity was swimming with the sringray
This morning was another relaxing morning. I sat outside with my coffee, listened to the birds, logged into work briefly. I then took a leisurely walk on the beach. No one was around. Perfect!
Excitement was in the air for our boat tour today. We had about an hour ride to the boat launch. We didn’t know what to expect. We were told that we might see sharks, cool, and see a conch nursery, neat!
The fact that today is the warmest day yet, is exciting to be on a boat. We packed a cooler, got our sunscreen and water shoes ready.
We arrived for the boat tour before our tour guide, Keith. Once he arrived, he needed help carrying coolers and bags to the boat. He fell and Andy sort of broke his fall on his way to the boat.
I wondered if we really should go out on a boat and have a wild animal encounter with this gentleman.
We finally got onto the boat and were on our way to an island that was way off in the distance. The air was warm, the water was blue and the day was perfect!
We made it to the island we were going to. Our guide told us about sting ray behavior and how they are curious. They are kind of like dogs.
We got off the boat and were in water that was shin deep.
The sting ray recognized our guide, Keith. They came over and were rubbing up on his legs. They were avoiding us. We were unknown.
Keith shared that the stingray that come around were all female and one was pregnant. He is not sure where the males are.
Keith showed us how to feel the stingray. He ran our hand over the top of their heads. They are soft on the sides but they have a hard armor on top of their heads.
We also took turns interacting with and kissing the sting ray. Amazing!
We learned that stingray can smell the fish blood in the water and they relate more to the shark family in that their sense of smell guide them.
There was also a hierarchy amongst the stingray. The alpha stingray was chasing away the other ladies away.
We were given a piece of fish to feed the stingrays. The ladies loved it. They scurried over to have their snack and it reinforced that we were friends, not there to hurt them.
After each one of us got the chance to feed and kiss the stingray, Keith had is all link arms and snorkel slowly to the boat. The stingray were coming fight up to us, swimming by our feet and being silly.
Keith grabbed more dead fish and we made our way over to this large piece of dead tree. Keith had us stay on one side on the dead tree and stuffed a few dead fish into a conch shell. We were in maybe knee deep water.
With our snorkel gear, we watched the stingray lay on top of the conch shell to suck out the fish. At that point several sharks came over to assess the situation. They were so close. I reached out and was able to drag my fingers along one of the sharks bodies as it was swimming by.
We went back to the shoreline and sat in knee deep water. I was able to feed the stingray again. At this point, the stingray were quite comfortable around is. They were bumping into our butts, one was nibbling on Paul’s toe. Wow! So cool!
We headed back to shore, sun burned and excited about our experience. We all agreed that Keith’s “day at the office” is way cooler than our “day at the office”.
We made our way back to our rental house. We had dinner in and we were sitting outside. The damn rabbit sized rat came back, nope!!!! Inside I went. Stupid rat! Gross!
Then the boys made fun of me for touching sharks but being afraid of a rat.
What a memorable experience.
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