We went boating the beginning of August and hadn’t been out in a white. Both my son and I had Covid and mine (being older, I’m sure) dragged on and on. The lack of energy was just awful. But… finally we just had to get out on the water.
Unfortunately the tide was high – not my favorite for beach-combing. And there were many, many stingrays! I often see them when the water is this depth, but not this many. They were everywhere!
You never know what you will find in nature, and this area is no exception. It’s part of the fun of exploring the great outdoors.
I don’t know much about stingrays and where they live, but there were some creepy looking black tunnels in the sand. Is that where they hide out? The black would be the deeper sand that was dug up. I don’t usually see these things, so I assume they were made by the stingrays.
As you may be able to tell from my photos, stingrays blend in very well with the sand. At least I could see the bottom in the shallow water, and I would follow my own footprints back to the boat thinking I wouldn’t step on a “stingray house” accidentally. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t swim by!
The Three Sisters Islands is an area we like to visit. It is especially nice at low tide when there is a little canal we follow in behind the islands. It gives us access to lots of sandy places to walk. The water never gets low enough to strand us, and it’s a good place to find unusual sea life.
Those stingrays were too much for me though. The fact that many beach-goers had also been stung recently did not help. It was stingray season, it seems.
At low tide this area is sandy and muddy. Boats pull up from the river side and enjoy the “beach”. I did walk around a bit, and was careful to shuffle my feet and try to let any stingrays know I was there. But it was just too creepy for me. I’ve walked among stingrays before and know that sometimes they don’t easily scare off. I certainly did not want to be stung and get a barb in my foot or leg.
We took a ride to another island and took a swim. I did see stingrays here, but could keep my feet off the bottom at least! It was hot… we needed to cool off – haha… in the 90 degree water!
We went back out boating a few weeks later and I found a living sand dollar on Three Sisters! That was a great day for beach-combing. The stingrays were gone.
