Quest for Conch

We've all been obsessed with foraging for seafood since our arrival in the Bahamas.  There's nothing like being on the ocean to make you crave food from it.  Besides that, food here is very expensive.  

Wow

It seems that my love of mushroom hunting has been transferred to the marine realm. Unlike mushroom hunting, Scott shares this passion, mostly because he loves seafood and he thinks mushrooms taste like dirt.  The girls will hunt anything.  While Wren prefers to name her captives and admire them alive, Riley will hunt and kill anything that's been described as, "good eating".  They have spent hours studying our already dog-eared copies of Sport Fish of Florida and The Cruisers Handbook to Fishing which we now refer to as "The Bible".

Reading aloud from Sport Fish

Scott and I make a good team.  His interest lies in the vertebrate population; snapper, mahi-mahi, tuna, while I am more interested in hunting invertebrates; lobster, crabs, and yup, snails.  I guess I like them slow. Together, we've got the ocean offerings pretty much covered.  However, he's been much more successful in putting food on the table.  In part, I attribute this to my lack of appropriate resource materials.  Back home, I have a shelf full of field guides to help identify the things I hunt (not to mention unlimited access to Google).  Here, we only have the resources I mentioned above which deal primarily with fin fish.  When someone yells, "fish on!" the girls go running; Riley, for the gaff, and Wren, for the sport fish ID book. Most times it hasn't even been in the boat a minute before they have a name for it and are reciting its "food value". We want to make sure to release what we don't want to eat back to the sea.  

Fish on!

Blue runner. Food value is... good!

Fillet lesson

Wren gets other side

Nice job, Riley!

We've been blessed with the Mahi we caught on the way over, two 15+ pound mutton snapper, a bar jack, blue runner, and several miscellaneous grunts. I haven't been so lucky.  Not that I'm keeping score.

Mutton snapper #1

Mutton snapper #2 was even bigger!

I bought the girls a crab trap for Christmas, hoping to relive my childhood crab catching days on Cape Cod.  We've baited it several times with a variety of tantalizing rotting things (the spoils from Scott's triumphs).  Nothing. 

Crabbin'

One calm night, while we were anchored off Manjack Cay, I convinced the family that if we went for a night hunt in the dinghy with a spot light we'd be able to catch spiny lobster out of their daytime hiding places foraging on the grass flats. Everyone loved this idea and we piled in the dinghy.  As we approached a small island, the water literally erupted with blue, needle-shaped fish that Riley was convinced were the potentially dangerous hound fish she'd read about in The Bible.  She reported, in a rather panicked tone, "They have razor sharp bills and teeth that can give you a painful wound!".  We ducked and dodged and covered all exposed flesh as they hurled themselves at our boat.  After more careful inspection, she retracted her identification and deemed them to be a harmless bait fish named ballyhoo.  Our attention then turned to trying to catch them.  Unfortunately, their streamline shape allowed them to slip through the holes in our net.  We did, however, catch a large needle fish that we surmised must have been chasing the ballyhoo.  We let it go, as their food value is reported to be, "not bad but bony".  We went back to Kiawah empty handed. Lazy lobsters. 

Most of my focus has been on trying to find a queen conch.  I've been craving this Bahamian food staple (second only to peas n' rice) since my arrival.  I know exactly how I'll prepare it if I ever do; ceviche (a salad made with raw conch, lime juice, and chopped fresh vegetables) and conch fritters.  Sure, I could find these items in a restaurant, but that's no fun.  I've found several juvenile specimens, but the shell "must have a well developed flared lip" to be considered legal.  Apparently, it takes many years for conch to reach sexual maturity, and the population, already closed in Florida, is teetering on the brink of being over-fished.  I've had several close calls finding one.  It seems the hermit crabs here think it's funny to masquerade as queen conchs.  Just when you think you've found a keeper conch you turn it over only to find a hermit crab laughing at you.  I should just eat them.
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Queen conch!  Not legal

I did find two specimens of another species of conch that I took captive, along with several top shell snails (Bahamians call them whelks).  My decision based on a tip from The Bible that, "most species of conch and marine snails are edible".   I was prepared to give them a try. Later that day, Scott reeled in another monster mutton snapper and made plans to marinade it in lime juice and garlic and grill it.  Suddenly, my catch seemed less appealing.  Besides, Wren had already named them all.  How could I eat a snail named Speedy?  We tossed Speedy and his friends back to the sea.   

Snapper ala Scott, with fried plantains

Yummmmmm.

Speedy and the gang

The closest I've come to eating queen conch was in Marsh Harbour.  I was walking down the street and a guy was selling them out of the back of his pick-up.  He was processing the mound of live conch as easily as one would shell a pile of pistachio nuts. Cleaning conch is a very challenging  art.  An art he obviously mastered.  I asked if he could show me the ropes.  He smirked knowingly and grabbed a conch and his hammer.  In a flash had it plucked from the shell, eviscerated, skinned, and rinsed, all with rather garbled narration.  I asked if I could purchase two.  He told me it would be $4.00.  He proceeded to begin cracking them and I interrupted him saying I wanted them in the shell.  He gave me a funny look and said, "that will still be $4.00".  I guess conch cleaning lessons have to be worth something. 

I took the giant snails back to the boat in a plastic grocery bag with plans to prepare them for dinner.  When I arrived, Scott was in the middle of installing "the twins", and needed some help.  I lost track of time (and the fact that the conch were on the deck, out of water, in a bag).  When I remembered them the next morning, they were dead.  I felt absolutely awful.  Eating them was out of the question.  I didn't want them to be wasted (though something was sure to enjoy them if I threw them overboard).  I proceeded to practice my new conch cleaning skills, with the help of the girls and The Bible.  It was certainly a lot more difficult than it looked!  Much more practice is required.  We saved the conch to use for bait.  I'm sure Scott will reel in a lunker on it.

My quest for conch continues.

Following directions from The Bible

Peeling the tough outer skin