All conched out

 Today was one of those days we come to the Bahamas for. The sky was clear and blue, while the winds and water were calm. So let's go out for some conch we thought, and that we did. Upon departing Hope Town Harbour we were greeted with flat water all the way out to the reef that isolates the Sea of Abaco from the Atlantic. Today there was no need of insulation from the Atlantic as the Atlantic was calm as well. In fact boats coming around the Whale reported that the only rough water they encountered was from the wake of another boat.

 It didn't take us long to locate some conch that meets the harvest criteria. They were all over the place and given how calm the water was we didn't need the look bucket to spot them.  I was able to run  the dink at 16 knots and see them well enough to decide whether or not they were keepers. We passed up quite a few before settling in on a spot to jump in for the harvest.

 And that was an experience. I'm very happy I had the 3 mil suit on because it was not exactly warm water. Can you spell "Pucker"? But after a moment or two in the water I was more or less, ok less, acclimated to the temperature. Fortunately, in no time at all I had three keepers in the dink with Deb. I was glad I picked over where we wanted to stop as I was only in the water a few minutes at most. Perhaps the water temperature was an incentive to making quick work of the harvest.

 After collecting the conch we motored out towards the reef hoping to take in some underwater sights via the look bucket. Given we did not actually cross over the reef 'proper' we never got a look at the spectacular sights a reef provides, but we were able to spot several varieties of fish, no lobster antennas but plenty of fish. Perhaps next time. 

 After a pleasant ride back to Hope Town I unloaded the conch at the dock and pulled the animals out of the shells. At this point I gave them to Deb to skin since I had to run across the harbour to purchase fish from Down Deep Charters. I had a great excuse to skip out on skinning these crites. Down Deep was at the dock and had plenty of Grouper, Lobster and salads at a reasonable price. With this perfect excuse to bail out of skinning a slimy tough skinned crite I dumped and ran. The best part of this was knowing that I left the eye stalks on the animals so when Deb started to work on them the eyes were staring at her. 

 Anyway, we have conch for various recipes, as well as fresh grouper and lobster tails. And Deb will have nightmares due to the eye stalks staring at her. There isn't a cloud in the sky and the sun is going down on a very pleasant Bahamian day.
 The GPS data is up to date including the run in the dink.