Today was one of the best days so far on the trip. We went to stingray city and went on two dives: Hepp’s Pipeline and Spanish Bay.
The two dive terrains were very different; One was a deeper dive along the side of a coral reef wall and one was a shallow dive on top of the coral reef. The first interesting thing I saw was 3 lion fish. Lion fish can be identified by their brown and white striped bodies and several spiny fins sticking out all sides. Specifically they have 13 dorsal spines, 10 dorsal soft rays, 3 anal spines, and 6 anal soft rays. They are an incredibly invasive specie due to their rapid population growth and lack of predators. This is because of their venomous, abundant spines and the fact that they can lay 30,000 eggs every 4 days. Another thing we saw on the dives was a Caribbean Spiny Lobster; This is the most abundant specie of lobster in the Cayman Islands. They can be identified by their reddish color and 19 segment bodies. They also have long antennae on each side of their body that is almost longer than their body. Lobsters always face their predators so they can back up in defense and they can easily break apart to escape a predator.
Stingray city has been my favorite dive so far. We sat on our knees in a circle formation the entire dive in about 15 feet of water while the dive masters fed the stingray squid. This was extremely unique because stingray city is the only touch zone on the Caymans meaning it is ok to touch and feel the ray. The top is almost like a slimy sand feeling while the bottom can only be described as a “wet mushroom.” The only species of stingray we saw was the Atlantic stingray. Atlantic stingray can be identified by their spade like pectoral fin and their whip like stinger. They also have a grayish shade on the top and a white shade on the bottom. Male stingray in this specie is much smaller and females are much larger. All in all it was an amazing hands on experience with such a unique specie so rare to see in any dive.
