Hey sharkgirl, yes you can eat skates. In fact, my company paid for a really expensive dinner at this posh restaurant in SF, and they were serving skate wings. The meat is very fiberous, but not tough, it was soft like california halibut.

Another thing you can do with skates and similar fish is cut the wings into smaller pieces and saute them like you would shrimp or scallops. In fact, a guy at the fish market told me most "scallops" that you buy in the grocery stores are really skate wings, punched into perfect round pieces using a cookie-cutter type of device. The only real scallops are usually only found in nicer restaurants.

Happy eating :-)