Life and Death of a Conch

A conch is a gastropod. Gastropods have a soft body and grow a protective shell around the body. The Sea of Abaco is the perfect environment for these gastropods to thrive. Additionally, conch is a great source of healthy protein. And, as if that weren't enough, the shells can be beautiful and make for great decoration. Garden paths lined with shells are quite common here in the Abacos. Finally, the shells can be converted into conch horns, the precursor to the dreaded vuvuzela (or, like we call them in Argentina since long before they became popular during the 2010 World Cup, corneta).

The previous paragraph summarizes the few hard facts we've learned about conch since arriving in The Bahamas. But the more interesting aspect about our conch experience is how the friends we've made introduced us to conch and the culture around it. One by one, our friends furnished us with information about this gastropod. It's been an experience of discovery and friendship. The kind of experience I hoped to have when I dreamed about cruising.

Upon arriving in Man-O-War, Myron and Dena told us they'd been conching (the act of picking up live conch from the sea bed) and gave the kids a couple of discarded shells. They taught us how to clean the shells and told us about the different ways conch can be prepared for eating. A few days later they gave us some of Dena's delicious conch salsa; that's Dena's own recipe. I made conch salsa omelette... yum.

Conch salsa omelette

When we took part on our first dinghy drift, we learned about the Bahamian tradition of blowing a conch horn at sunset. A sort of Sun salutation. Anchorages around the Sea of Abaco sound like a tame football stadium when the Sun gives its last beams of the day.

One night we were visiting Art and Vicki on Don Quixote, and Art showed me what a conch horn looks like and told me how it can be made. Then we met Kim and Les on Willamia and wondered at Les's ability at making a conch howl evenly for several seconds at a time. I had the information on how to make a conch horn, had seen a couple of working samples, and that was enough to get my restless hands to work.

Tools of the conch horn maker

A proper conch horn is made with a discarded conch shell, sealing the hole that's chipped away when extracting the conch from the shell, and cutting off the spire of the shell to make a blow hole. Sounds simple. Out came the hacksaw and the epoxy. My first attempt at making one wasn't quite successful. Barry from Beach Cruiser came around for a visit and checked out my handy work. He gave me some advice on how to improve it and I got to work on the second shell. The second one was successful. I may have had to get technological the second time around, and may have used a Dremel to make sure the blow hole was the right size and shape.

Don't chip away any more than necessary!

Another thing Barry did is describe what a good place to find adult conch looks like. He mentioned 5 to 6 meters of water, on or around a grassy patch, and close to or in a cut. A cut is a place where the Sea of Abaco and the Atlantic Ocean meet. When we were relaxing on Tahiti Beach a couple of days ago I realized that I could dinghy out to Tilloo Cut in a few minutes. I didn't have my snorkeling gear, just a pair of goggles. Away I went to the cut.

It took me a few minutes to spot and pick up a couple of adult conch. The adults are identified by the size of the shell and the thickness of the lip. The bigger the shell and thicker the lip, the older they are. And here's where Melissa and K from Morning Star come in. Melissa was paddling around the cut that morning, so I went over and proudly showed her my catch. I needed someone to tell me how to clean and cook the conch. She suggested we get together that night and they would show us how to process the day's catch. She also said I should go back for more to make sure we had enough for both families.

While K taught me how to clean the conch, Melissa and Natalia got everything ready to make cracked conch. The cleaning is somewhat challenging for a city boy like me. My first concern was the fact that I would be ending a few lives. I made sure I said sorry to the conch I killed before plunging the knife. Regardless of my meaningless apology, the conch died silently and, hopefully, quickly. I choose to think the conch knew how Gaia works; we're all part of the same organism and dying to feed each other is just the way Gaia stays alive. Right?

K (right) taught Mike (centre) and me how to clean conch while Natalia supervised (photo by Melissa Guinness)

Then came the dirty steps. After removing the conch from the shell, tissue needs to be cut off, skin needs to be peeled off. This also involved eating a transparent noodle-looking thing that we pulled out of the body. K said real Bahamians eat the noodle while they clean the conch. Lore maintains the noodle is an aphrodisiac. I could not let it go to waste. It tastes like salty goo. The wine we had that night may have been more of an aphrodisiac than the noodle.

Skinning conch with my teeth (photo by Melissa Guinness)

Yet again the culture around the conch made life interesting and fun. We ate good food, but more importantly, we shared this good food with good friends.

From left to right: Ernesto, Mike, a plate full of cracked conch, K, Melissa, Natalia (photo by the Guinnesses)

There's something primevally satisfying about using my own hands to gather food from the wild and feed my family. That's also pretty cool.