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Caribbean Underwater Animal Encounters |
The sharks you feed can't bite the hand feeding them. |
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Ever wanted to hand feed a shark--and never have to worry about whether you'll come back with all your body parts? You don't have to be scuba certified to hand-feed the school of lemon sharks at the Curacao Seaquarium. A quick training session will provide all the skills you need to swim through the 15-foot deep lagoon filled with stingrays, tarpon, snook, lobster and angelfish. The sharks are fenced off behind a large, clear acrylic wall pockmarked with feeding holes so you can slip fish through to feed the always hungry animals. Trying to hold onto the fish while a shark nibbles it is always an adrenaline blast--and totally futile. This is a rare opportunity to feed a shark yourself. In most places professional feeders do the job while you sit back and watch. If you'd rather watch sharks in the open ocean, dive operations in the Bahamas at Walker's Cay and Long Island have been shark feeding for years. Stingray Encounters
Until you've been caressed or totally enveloped by the wings of a stingray, you don't really know what interacting with wild animals is like. The best place by far for such intimate socializing is the shallow water spot known as Stingray City in Grand Cayman's North Sound. Big
schools of southern stingrays swim here always, though the
best time to dive or snorkel is the morning
when the rays are still hungry.Or on a Sunday when cruise
ships are absent. If
you prefer your rays large--say, manta-sized with an 8
to 10 foot wingspread--you can often find them just off Tobago in
the summer months. However, they haven't been as reliable
in recent years. The ever-grinning dolphin is probably the most loved animal in the sea. You can hope for a sighting of the famous JoJo who lives in the world around Providenciales ( Provo ) in the Turks & Caicos. Next Page: (Caribbean Animal Viewing Part 2) |
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