Conception

Boy, it's hard to find words to adequately describe the beauty of Conception Island.  We felt very lucky that the weather cooperated enough to allow us a window to venture out to this tiny, exposed paradise.  

Yup, that'll do

Conception is an uninhabited island that, luckily, the Bahamian people had the foresight to protect as The Conception Land and Sea Park under the jurisdiction of The Bahamas National Trust.  Visitors are encouraged to leave no trace of their presence here.  Of course, fishing is prohibited.  Scott, dutifully took the fishing rods out of their holders at the back of the boat, and put his Hawaiian sling on the shelf.  To be honest, we all needed a break from eating fish.  

The water was the clearest we'd seen yet.  So clear that the only evidence of it as it lapped onto the beach was the sand darkening below.  The main attraction on this small island, besides beautiful crescent beaches, are miles of mangrove creeks that flood the entire interior of the island with fingers of aqua water.   One inlet provides access to this inner maze.  We took the dinghy to the entrance and spent two days exploring on paddle boards and an inflatable raft.

Navigating the inlet in the dinghy

Fed and ready to go!

Explorers

In sync

The importance of this area as nursery habitat became evident immediately.   Schools of countless species of  fish darted for cover in the tangle of arching mangrove roots.  Predators abounded too; needle fish, barracuda, stingrays, and lemon sharks patrolled the waters under us, while many species of wading birds stalked the shallows.  Perhaps the most thrilling resident of this area were throngs of green sea turtles.  None of us had ever seen so many sea turtles in the wild and to have them darting about underneath our paddle boards was utterly amazing.  They were everywhere!  We couldn't beleive how fast they were.  Unfortunately, this made photographing them very difficult,  especially with a non-waterproof camera on a fairly unstable watercraft.  I opted to enjoy the experience rather than try to "capture" it.

Red mangroves arch their roots out of the water to acquire more oxygen

Another resident of the creek that I found particularly enthralling were queen conch.  They easily outnumbered the turtles 10 to 1.  Huge queen conch, with thick flared lips.  Legal conch.  Wouldn't you know,  I finally find a legal conch and it's in a protected area (amazing what happens when you conserve a resource, eh?).  They were everywhere, taunting me (I even had the ingredients for ceviche on the boat).  

After carting one particular individual around on my paddle board for a while to study, its little eyes gazing up at me,  I had to ask myself if I really could harvest any if they weren't  protected.  The first steps in preparing conch for the table are as follows:

1) Knock a small hole in the shell of the live conch between the second and third spire.

2) Stick a knife in the hole and sever the tendon that holds the conch in the shell.

3)  Hold the conch by the foot and cut off the proboscis and eye stalks.

4) Remove the...  Wait a minute...  cut off the eye stalks?!

I don't know about you but I think conch have adorable eyes.  Right up there with bunny rabbits.  I couldn't kill a bunny rabbit either.  

Could you?

Besides that, I'd been learning a lot about the status of the conch population here.  Not good.  There's a reason I haven't found any legal sized conch in my travels.  They are being over-harvested at an alarming rate.  The Bahamas needs every large reproductive conch it can get.

I winked back at Romeo and rolled him off my paddle board.  I watched him sink quickly into the blue and come to rest on a bed of turtle grass below.  I  told him to be fruitful and multiply.  Quickly!  I'll keep eating fish.