Did anyone other than me watch that Tv show last year called "Surface"? I didn't think so. I saw some talk/buzz about it on Divester.com last year so I tuned in. Turned out it wasn't as scuba-involved as I thought, but it was about this new species of vertebrate that was 'discovered' living in the ocean. They were hatched from eggs, had some sort of built-in taser device, were omnivorous and oh yeah, they could heal themselves, so they were practically invincible and immortal. It turned out to be a secret gov't genetics experiment gone awry and then the whole conspiracy/cover-up that dogged the main protagonists as they fought to discover the truth. In the end, because they could control weather patterns, they managed to trigger tsunamis while growing large enough to eat an entire fishing cruiser in one bite. Ultimately they became the new dominant species on the planet and they faded to black and didn't come back for a second season, but I digress.

About a month or so ago, Johnny Rotten got himself impaled on a stingray's barb out at Stingray City. He'll heal, but for now he's got a 3/8" hole in his leg that's slowly healing from the inside out. Three days after his incident, Steve Irwin got stung by a Bull Ray in the chest and died from it. In John's case, he was knocked/pushed over by a fatty cruise shipper and impaled himself on the barb. In Irwin's case, they've spun it so it sounds like an unprovoked attack, but no one REALLY knows what happened, so I'll not speculate on that. Now this morning there's a report on CNN about an 81 year old man getting stung by an Eagle Ray near Lighthouse Point, 30 miles north of Miami. Despite getting a barb (eagle rays have three in a row on their tails) RIGHT IN THE CHEST, he's going to make it, after surgery to remove it. That's one tough old guy! This incident happened in the intracoastal waterway... that's right, according to CNN, the ray leaped out of the water, INTO THE BOAT and nailed him.

I've had the opportunity to be up-close and personal with a juvenline eagle ray as it was feeding in the sand out in front of the wreck of the Oro Verde. Generally eagle rays are more skittish than southern atlantic stingrays (like the kind at Stingray City) and won't come near people. They're also larger than southern atlantic stingrays. They have a shovel-shaped nose that helps them dig in the sand to find little crustaceans and mollusks to eat. That's right, no teeth. On the other hand, I have seen eagle rays breaching in North Sound. The water in the sound is very shallow, I think the deepest it gets is about twelve feet deep and the shallowest is about knee-high at Stingray City Sandbar. Usually we'll be cruising along all of a sudden you see a splash and a brief glimpse of a tail. Probably the eagle ray was sleeping and the boat scared the bejabbers out of it and it accelerated up and breached. I have heard stories of them coming completely out of the water though.

What more than likely happened was the same sort of scenario: shallow, murky water in the intracoastal, sleeping eagle ray, boat scares it, it takes off, breaches and in this case lands IN the boat. As it's thrashing around trying to get back into the water, this 81 year old guy takes a shot in the chest. So while yes it is within the realm of possibility, it is, as the Fire Dept Lt. put it "A real freak thing". Not the ray's fault, it isn't even like Bart & Lisa Simpson saying "Im just windmilling my arms, if you walk into it and get punched, it's not MY fault".

Or is it? it's 10257 miles from Darwin Australia to Grand Cayman. Is there some sort of Stingray conspiracy going on where they're planning an all-out assault on humanity? Could it be that the stingray that John fell on somehow sent out a telepathic signal to the bull ray in Australia who then went after Steve Irwin in response? Could the eagle ray 'attack' be a public relations stunt by the Stingray Liberation Organization to show what kind of weapons they have at their disposal? There are enough whackos in the world who will believe anything, so it wouldn't surprise me if another conspiracy theory cropped up around stingrays now. The biggest question is "Who is pulling the strings and are they going to attack while George Bush is still in office?" :)

Update: Holy crap, there ARE whackos out there who believe in the conspiracy!