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This cruise
Satellite picture from Google Earth
This is the whole island. The arrow (which I added) shows where Stingray City is.
The Radiance was moored over to the left off Georgetown. There were EIGHT cruise ships in at Georgetown including Radiance; two were the largest ships on the sea (the Freedom of the Seas carries 4,300 passengers, served by over 1300 crew!). So, little Cozumel (pop. about 90,000) was inundated by as many as 12,000–14,000 people.
Satellite picture from Google Earth
A close-up: not our group!
Satellite picture from Google Earth
The reef that protects/creates the sandbar where
we stood and played with the stingrays.
The color of the water in the port where
we disembarked from Radiance. Beautiful!
The view from the Cockatoo Catamaran as we arrived at Stingray City. Michael compares the arrival/movement of the rays to Cylon battle ships in the original Battlestar Galactica. A very accurate comparision!
Here they come!
The last stragglers coming back to the catamaran for the “sail” home (because of time and wind constraints, we ended up motoring out and back {sigh}). Ira, from our CruiseCritic.com group is there (back left); the tall guy in the middle is the captain of the catamaran. The water was deeper near the boat (about collarbone deep on Elenor); shallower off the the right where we stood and fed them for an hour or so. The waves were pretty high, and I was afraid of landing on a ray when I had to jump up to keep my head above the occasional really tall wave.
There’s the reef that protects and creates the sandbar. Although it doesn't look in in the pix, it was quite windy and “wavey.”
The catamaran captain started it off with the bait bucket. The rays know what's in the bucket.
Feed me! Feed me! Come ON!
Michael took over the bait bucket.
Feeding frenzy. These ladies weigh upwards of 100+ pounds – and when
a bunch of ’em push on you, you know it!
The rays just crowd around begging.
The rays have a line of spines down their backs (non-poisonous) and Michael got all scratched up in the feeding frenzy.
The ray’s gill is directly behind the eye. Here, it’s open. (You can see those back spines at the left edge.).
Here the gill slit is closed.
The back of a ray
Michael and his new friends