A large southern stingray at Blue Hole kicks up the sand as it twists to evade my advances.

If you follow its tail from the base you can see the cocked barb. It can create a nasty wound that can be extremely painful and take a very long time to heal.

Fortunately for us, most accidents with stingrays occur in the surf zone where people step on the rays and the ray instinctively drives that barb into the beach comber's leg.

The Blue Hole is a sinkhole about 100 feet across that drops down to a depth of more than 160 feet. For my money it didn't offer much in the way of variety. But along the lip and in the surrounding turtle grass there was a lot of interesting wildlife, like this ray.