We just got back from our second cruise ever and I realized that the best parts this time around were the shore excursions.  One of those excursions was with Moby Dick Tours to snorkel 5 miles off the coast of Grand Cayman.  It was amazing!  We spent a little while snorkeling near the reef and then went snorkeling and swimming with tame stingrays…it was spectacular.

Moby Dick Tours even has a floating bucket of squid that you can feed the stingrays if you want.  Plus they were half the price of the same Carnival Cruise excursion and they made sure to get us back to our ship on time.  It was the best $40 per person I have ever spent!

For anyone who doesn’t know, snorkeling requires a mask, a snorkel, and fins if you want to get around quickly.  It takes a few minutes to get used to the mask squishing your cheeks, but it ends up being totally worth it.  If you have a good seal, you can snorkel for hours without swallowing any water or getting sea water in your eyes.

The stingrays were so used to being handled and fed that they were completely harmless.  The large ones are 3-4 feet from tip to tip and are the females.  The males are about the size of a frisbee.  They all have a barb the size of a long nail, but they have been fed into a docile submission…they are 100% friendly.  I even accidentally stepped on one and he didn’t seem to mind too much, especially after I fed him some squid as an apology. 

Here’s my favorite pictures from the barrier reef 5 miles of the coast of Grand Cayman and Stingray City:

Have you ever been snorkeling?  If you have, did you enjoy it too?  I’ve heard scuba diving is even better, but it was cost prohibitive…for any of you that scuba dive, is it worth it?