Today was our first scuba diving experience in the Caymans. We did 2 dives for about 60 minutes each which proved to be very exhausting but extremely fun. The first dive was only a couple hundred feet out from the resort and the second dive was around the side of the island near the 7 mile beach on the west side of the island. Some notable things I saw on the dive was a school of about 40 blue tang going from coral to coral feeding. One interesting fact about the tang is that the trumpet fish, who are a completely different species, change color to a dark purple mimicking the tang and will feed with the tang in the group. The dive was incredible interesting and exciting. Later in the day we had a discussion on stingray city, a controversial tourist attraction with hand on interaction with stingrays. The positive effects basically assist the economy with approximately 1500 people visiting a day and $40 a person. The negative effects are the health effects with stingrays. They end up relying on the food being given to them at the site and become dependent on humans. Furthermore their protective mucus coating can be rubbed off and this leads to UV rays damaging them and parasites in the water causing disease. Also they have a decline in their immune system leading to a shorter life. Tomorrow we will indeed be visiting stingray city despite these facts but will make sure to cause no harm to the rays.
