The stingaree swam slowly through the warm waters of Chesapeake Bay. Geography meant nothing to the ray, whose sole interest in life was food, but his position—had he known it—was in the channel that runs between Poplar Island and the town of Wittman on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The ray was also directly in the path of an odd-looking cruising houseboat, the Spindrift, that had just rounded the north point of Poplar Island and entered the channel. The sting ray's color was an olive brown, so dark in tone that he looked like wet black leather. He was roughly diamond-shaped, like a kite, with rounded sides. He had a long, slim tail that carried vicious barbs along the base of its upper side.
