Things are still very slow down here. Reservations are starting to roll in for this upcoming season, so we're very excited about that.
ASA just announced
their trip for this next season, so be sure to sign-up early because this trip fills up fast.
I thought it might be fun to do a little lesson on
Queen Conch today. So here goes:
1) It is pronounced KONK down here in the Bahamas
2)This first picture above is of a juvenile Queen Conch.
3) You cannot harvest (or hunt) the juvenile conch. They must be fully developed with a large flaring lip (the part of the shell that stands up high as pictured in the 2 conchs below).
4) Bahamian local cuisine is full of conch dishes: conch fritters, conch salad, conch burgers, crack conch, conch stew....the list goes on and on.
5) In order to get to the conch you have to use a conch hatchet or hammer or something like that to crack a hole in the shell. You can see in this picture below where the conch was cut out. Once you have the hole, you have to cut it off the shell by sticking a knife in the shell and breaking the attachment.
6) You have to peel and skin the conch, but in one of the most popular dishes (conch salad), the conch can come pretty much out of the shell, cleaned up and chopped up and tossed right in the dish as is (no cooking necessary).
Side note: When I was first introduced to this Bahamas Family of mine they have this little initiation thing they do (anyone that has come on a trip with them has experienced this tradition). When they are cleaning the conch, they remove the conch pistol (pronounced pissle). Some say it is part of the digestive system. It has texture of a gummy worm candy. Anyway, their initiation is to swallow this. I can in fact say that it does not taste like a gummy worm :) It doesn't really taste like much at all!
7) This picture above is what the conch looks like from above when you're looking for them in the water. Sometimes they are covered by even more grass, so you have to look kind of close to see them.
8) The shells make great souvenirs! Especially if you can say you dove it up yourself. Some even had pearls hiding in them. My father-in-law has found two, but Dallas grandfather (trust me, has cleaned thousands of conch in his lifetime) has never found one. Maybe one day I'll have a sweet little pink pearl!
Our next ocean critter for today is the Southern Stingray. Stingrays are very common around these parts. we were over at a local hangout called
Chat-n-Chill on Stocking Island yesterday and had fun with a couple rays that are always hanging out and getting fed there. The kids (mine and some friends of ours) were brave enough to get in the water with them, so they were able to coax a few grown ups to get in as well. Joss was LOVING this part of the day!
Stingrays are usually very friendly. I know the rare incident with Steve Irwin has really given them a bad rep, but they really are quite pleasant creatures. You can read more about them
here if you want. One thing we try to tell folks before heading out on one of our kayaking or sailing trips in the Exuma Cays is to be careful when you are wading in the water to shuffle your feet along the sand instead on just stepping and tromping through the sand. If the stingrays are hiding or sleeping in the sand they could sting you as a reflex if you step on them. Usually, by just walking slowly through the sand you can give them a heads up you are in the area and they will scurry away.
I'm no biologist or marine specialist, but I do enjoy discovering the sea creatures (or any creatures for that matter... these are just within reach right now) and learning about them is a lot of fun.
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