Swimming with the stingrays.......
FEEDING a group of stingrays was certainly not top of my 10 Things I Must Do Before I Die list.
And as I slipped into the clearest water I have seen in my life off the French Polynesian island of Bora Bora recently I cursed myself for my give-anything-a-go-once attitude.
Since the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin from a stingray barb to the heart, the feeding of the stingrays component of Patrick Tairua's Bora Bora tour has been met with mixed response.

Patrick has swum with these now-notorious animals all his life and he promised our tour group they were friendly and not likely to lunge at us.

Not everyone was convinced.

Three of our group decided to cast anxiety aside, while the other three held to it tightly, preferring the safety of the boat to the heart-pounding thrill of swimming with the creatures. Patrick says this reaction is common among most of his tour groups these days – about half of his clients opt out of the activity.

Before we ventured into the water with Patrick and about 15 stingrays, hearts in our mouths, sardines in hand, he gave us one warning.

"Stingrays are friendly, they try and kiss you, they don't kill you," he told us.

"It is the law of nature, if they come up to you it means they want to talk, but if they don't approach you then you leave them alone."

He also warned us not to panic when we felt their rough, scratchy tails brush against our legs.

Good thing he did warn us because even though I was expecting the sensation when it happened, I couldn't stop the almighty scream that I let out.

Despite my terror, I found the soft, smooth, wet animals beautiful. And friendly, too.

It may have been because we were helping them to stuff themselves with sardines (incidentally stingrays eat via mouths on their underside and breathe through gills like other fish) but it really did feel like they were rushing to welcome us into their territory.

He described them as being like velvet and Patrick was on to something. If you could imagine a 1m by 20cm moving solid piece of cold, wet velvet then you've got a general idea.

It may not have been on my top 10 list of things to do but swimming with these creatures will definitely go down as one of my most favourite memories.