Diving for me is very much about three things - underwater photography, visiting great destinations for fantastic holidays, and finally, to see the underwater animals. I have had the pleasure of seeing a very large number of sea animals, large and small and have even been able to capture most of them on camera. Now, as a rule, I do not make a habit of touching anything down there and aim to be the silent observer only. However, since the untimely demise of Steve Irwin in a freak accident when he was stung to death by a stingray, I decided to make one exception to this rule. For bucket list purposes, its was not enough to merely see or swim with a stingray, I also wanted to touch it and live to tell the tale.
The following video shows us spotting a stringray probably fast asleep. I pass my camera over to our DM and took the bouy line from him to fullfill this list item. Not wanting to disturb the animal too much (read, too scared to), I gave it one gentle stroke before moving on.
The video to prove the tick mark:
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