Sharks at Staniel Cay

The fishermen at Staniel Cay are keen to offer you lobster and other delights. It's outside our budget, usually, but we enjoy the sideshow when they clean the fish, conch and lobster and throw the remains into the water.

The sharks and rays have got used to the free food and hang around all day in the shallows.

They are nurse sharks - harmless creatures that feed on crustaceans and leftovers. The rays are sometimes stingrays but they too are almost totally harmles unless you sneak up on them and surprise them into an attack - which we have never had happen.

On a shallow beach where rays come in, you can often stand in the water and stroke the wings of the stingrays as they come by.