Feeding the Rays
03 April 2011 | Back in Georgetown, Monument Beach
Jill
Bud and I were hanging out this morning when the folks on Shamrock (yes, another Shamrock) called on the radio. They had mentioned the other day that they had a book that had fish
identification and eating quality. They had invited us to come over and see it and were repeating their invitation, so Bud, Fuzzy and I dinghied over to see them. John and Debby are
anchored right next to us here, so it was a quick dinghy ride. Not only did we get to look up the fish Bud caught (which we narrowed down to one of two edible Jacks) we also got to pick
their brains about other aspects of cruising. John gave me some more tips on using Sailmail, so hopefully this evening I'll get both yesterday's and today's blogs posted.
After a nice visit with them we decided to go back over to Volleyball Beach. Bud joined in a couple of games. I managed to snap a photo of him serving which I'll put in the gallery. We
bought conch salad on the beach. I didn't realize that it was made with raw conch, but they use enough lemon, lime and orange juice and hot sauce to nicely marinate it. It was pretty
good. Bud ordered his hot and mine medium hot. We ended up mixing some of them together, because Bud's was really too hot (even for Bud). We brought Fuzzy's food along with us, so
we could feed him, too.
We had noticed a guy feeding a ray earlier in the afternoon. When we went to leave a ray was still hanging around the beach so Bud asked the guy who made the conch salads about
feeding them. He told Bud you just hold the food flat on your hand and the ray will swim over your hand and take it. He said they have little fish teeth, not big shark teeth, so you could feel
their teeth if you curled up your fingers, but they wouldn't really hurt you. He told Bud he could feed them the conch guts he had on the bench he used to clean the conch. So Bud took a
big piece and waded into the water and the ray came right over. Bud fed it and then the ray let him rub it on it's top side near it's eyes. A second ray came up and Bud got another piece of
conch gut and ended up with two rays at his feet and he fed them both. I got a few pictures, I'll post the best one with this entry when I can. It shows the first ray eating out of Bud's hand.