One week day afternoon I had the opportunity to slip away from the desk and catch the tail end of a hurricane swell hitting the beach of Cape Canaveral. I could barely see other surfers in the distance leaving me alone with no competition for shoulder to head high sets in perfectly glassy waters. In between sets I would catch movement out of the corner of my eye followed by a splash off in the distance. After a few minutes of this I started getting a little creeped out, naturally. I caught the glimpse of a ray jumping out of the water and slamming down on the surface with a splash. I thought to myself how cool is this? I watched dozens of jumping rays in the next few minutes when I started thinking about Steve Irwin’s fatal experience. The man wrestled gators and teased rattle snakes only to fall pray to a chance encounter with a stingray barb to the chest. Suddenly a ray came shooting out of the water and slams back down 3 feet from the nose of my board! I
watched the rest of the show from the beach.

In this video posted back in October of 2011, hundreds of rays can be seen jumping out of the water. The poster states these are Mobula Rays off of Isla Espiratu Santos near La Paz, located in the Sea of Cortez. This area is part of a federally decreed Flora and Fauna Protection Area and a United Nations Biosphere Reserve.

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