Sting Rays, more like Sucker Rays...

Our "captain" had to take us all the way to the other side of the island to go see the sting rays.  These were not manta rays, they are sting rays.  Don't get them mixed up; it hurts their feelings.  This would be 1 higher on the danger-under-my-boat scale (Otherwise known as the DUMB scale) than swimming with the fish at the coral garden.  Also this would be the 2nd best thing we did on the BTWDY scale.  (I had to change the scale name to BTWDY because "yesterday" is no longer today (So now the new name is pronounced be-tweed-dee)).

Anyways, sting rays are a sensitive creature.  We were told by our "captain" not to step on them, not to grab their tale, not to make sudden movements, not to make fun of them, and most importantly, don't call them manta rays.  They are also very aggressive.  Several of them tried to eat us.  But since all they can do to eat is inhale, they were not very successful.  Some people left the rays with battle scars, or as i like to call them hickeys.  Little known fact - a sting ray would have to be huge and have a very powerful set of lung equivalents in order to have a mouth large enough and enough suction to inhale a whole human. (Please keep in mind that many of the "facts" in this story are not accurate.  Don't quote us for your science project Liz. Try wikipedia instead.)  I think it's pretty common knowledge that a whole human can't fit through a normal sized sting ray's mouth, let alone be completely inhaled.  So, Liz, if you want, feel free to use this information at school and impress the teachers with vast underwater life knowledge that is on this blog post.  Just don't forget to cite your sources!!!!

 This is about the place on the other side of the island that we met the sting rays.

What normally looked like coral were actually sting rays.  It was funny to watch them swim over to the boat.  Yes those dark spots are sting rays. It was a little ominous as we sat in our boat and began to see the rays surround us.

The sting rays would swarm any human-being who made fun of them, called them a manta ray, or whom they thought might have food.  When swarming they would try to destroy the human by eating them, but as described earlier, they were not big enough.

 Here's a sting ray.  Sting rays feel like slimy wet leather.  I petted them.  I was a little bit scared because I really didn't want to step on them.  When the "captain" fed them near me, they all swarmed me and knocked me over.  They're pretty strong.

And here are a couple of sting rays ignoring a fish pretending to be a sting ray, but the fish was unsuccessful. 

This shark made fun of a sting ray. As you can see, the sting ray tried to stab the shark, out of an emotional out pour of anger, with his stinger, but the sting ray was confused and stabbed the shark's shadow by mistake.  By the way this shark was circling us like he was picking which one of us he wanted to eat. 

more pictures of the shark picking which one of us he wanted to eat, and more sting rays being annoyed by the shark making snarky comments about them. I think one of the sting rays was scared of the shark because he started burrowing under the sand.  Or maybe he was just ashamed because Caleb kept calling him a "mana ray".  I was calling them sting rays.  I wouldn't dare make that mistake twice.

 This sting ray was trying to be a scroll.

Our captain knew exactly the time for us to get out of the water before the shark attacked.  So we were on our merry way to the next destination.