For those of you who don`t know who Rex Hunt is he hosted a TV show about fishing and often gave his catch a kiss before he released it ---- never saw him kiss a Stingray !

Stingrays are not the cutest of sea creatures and one of them did cause the death of our Aussie Icon Steve Irwin a few years back so when someone said hey you must go feed and swim with the rays when you are in Moorea I thought, yeah right!

Well as you can see we decided to go and what an unbelievable experience! We anchored the dinghy in about 1.5 meters of crystal clear water where you could clearly see the rays and the reef sharks swimming around which in itself was a treat but to really have the experience you need to join them so we were told!

With chunks of tuna in hand in we went. Leanne having been stung by a ray when we were in Mexico was pretty brave just getting in but after a little while she decided that it just wasn`t for her and decided to head back to the dinghy and take pictures .

The rays smell (or whatever it is they do) the tuna and congregate all around you,, swarm would probably be a better description . Because you are a bit apprehensive at first you tend to keep your arms pretty close to your chest. What you forget is that your hands are attached to your arms and in your hands is the tuna! The rays literally swim up you to get to your hands and the tuna which are out of the water and with a third of them out of the water they take the tuna out of your hand!!!! .

You realize that they are very placid and soon enough I too became calm and comfortable with them around me. Every now and then a reef shark would spot a bit of tuna that had been missed by the rays and dart in and grab it and then they would resume there vigilant watch from a couple of meters away.

At one stage I said something like I love these rays and someone suggested that maybe I should give one a kiss --- good idea said I and so in true Rex Hunt style I puckered up and laid a wet one on the nose of a few of them .

Check out the photo gallery to see Leanne’s great photos.