After a trip to the beach in the morning we set off for nearby Tatapouri where Sharon and Arran had discovered Dean and Chris Savage (who are not Savages) of Dive Tatapouri. Dean noticed about six years ago how stingrays would appear at high tide in Tatapour Bay and so he began feeding them. As well as various other tours including shark cage diving Dean acts as a guide for visitors to feed the rays from the reef. Normally using bamboo poles with bait on the end but those wishing can feed the rays by hand. Dean assured us the rays do not have sharp teeth. More like molars for crunching their pray.
There were a couple of people in the group who were keen to feed the rays by hand and I was not one of them. These things are big, big, big but then the internal dailogue in my brain kicked in and I promptly decided to step outside Mr Comfort Zone which is a big point to my trip. I looked at Dean and Dean looked at me. He understood and handed me a whole fillet of fish. Quickly realising this was not for my tea I knelt down to the edge of the reef (not easy in armpit high rubber waders) and waited for a ray to appear amongst the froth of fish nipping away at the fillet (those cannibals).
Up came the ray and I managed to get the fillet underneath him to his mouth. Ray looked me staright in the eye, winked, blew water out of his vents and with a huge slurping sound I felt the fillet pull away from my hands. I'd done it , I'd done it and patted the ray between his eyes. Dean had told us pat them there as anywhere else is a blindspot and it feaks them out a bit. The ray actually feels like rubber foam and liked the attention. There were two species here today the short tail and the Eagle ray. I hope somewhere on the trip I can dive with them.
In the evening we went to see the film Atonement based on the novel of the same name by Ian Macewan one of my favourire authors. I liked Gisborne's big cinema chairs!
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