Gisbourne is located on the easternmost point of New Zealand, right near the International Date Line. Therefore it has the distinction of witnessing the very first sunrise each morning.

I wake up early to walk down to the beach but there’s a thick cloud cover obscuring the horizon.

But I have another reason for rising at the crack of dawn — I’ve signed up to feed stingrays. Like, live stingrays. In the ocean.

I know, I’m freaked out too.

I get dolled up in wading pants. (They work until a huge wave washes over us and we get soaked.)

Our guide gives us an overview on the beach: what kind of stingrays we might see, how to pet them (!), and where to position our hands so they can suction up the food we offer.

Time to venture into the water. Game face on. Let’s do this!

My nerves have died down and I’m excited.

And then this guy brushes against my leg.

There’s video footage below and at one point you can hear me say, “I’m uncomfortable right now.” This next picture was taken around that time.

These are females. The blue spots indicate they are ready to mate. They’re fairly small as far as stingrays go; maybe two feet wide.

Three of them cruise in the water around our ankles, waiting for food.

Our guide uses the big stick to guide the stingrays to our feet. We also hold sticks but it’s more to secure our place in the water as the stingrays gather around us.

They float right up to our ankles and allow us to pet them. Perhaps they know this is part of the routine before they get food.

We feed them by positioning our hands UNDER their bodies while holding a piece of dead fish between our fingers. Stingrays don’t have jaws but they have a powerful gum line that suctions up food. It’s an odd and uncomfortable sensation… they seem fairly docile but I’m nervous for the fate of my fingers every time I reach down to feed one.

After maybe twenty minutes in the water, a BIG female stingray approaches. She’s maybe 5 feet wide with a very long and aggressive-looking tail.

Our guide thinks she might be pregnant because her belly is very swollen. He tells us that stingrays give birth to their young, which surprises me as I would have expected them to lay eggs like turtles.

As she approaches, our guide explains that this is the same kind of stingray that killed Steve Irwin. He then invites us to lean over and pet her.

…I’ll sit this one out.

We snap a few more shots of these creatures. They are so playful; I never would have expected it.

Here’s video footage from our time with the stingrays. It’s tough to capture them because they blend into the water so well. I had to play around with these photos to get the colors to pop, but video is harder for me to manipulate. Still, you can see them playing around our feet.

The BIG stingray approaches at the 2:45 mark and it’s the coolest part of the video.