The Conch Killer

Days 59— The Conch on Norman’s Cay

Today is Friday, January 30, 2009 and another beautiful day at Norman’s Cay, Exuma. Rumors (and the guide books) say that there is a restaurant on the other side of Norman’s Cay. Supposedly, this place—MacDuff’s—has the best cheeseburger in paradise so, John and I dinghied over to the beach and began hiking along an old paved road in search of this cheeseburger. There were no signs, just the one road with an occasional ruin of a home or bar along the way. Suddenly the old road lead us to the middle of a runway! Yikes! But no planes were landing. There across the runway was a MacDuff sign saying that they didn’t open until 3 and if the gates were closed to please not intrude on their privacy (I think that means to GO AWAY!). Well, it was about 4 o’clock, but the gates were closed so we hiked back to our anchorage on the other side. We’ll have to try again some other time to put MaDuff’s burger to the test.

Snorkeling was next on our list. But, much like the cheeseburger, the spiny lobster who was begging to be caught yesterday did not show up today. Our new friends from the Island Packet One Eyed Parrots were out snorkeling on the reef too. They guided us to the land of conchs and helped us find mature ones. We took our legal limit back to the boat and John cleaned them. You probably cannot tell from these pictures, but cleaning conch is not easy and even with the help of a good “how to clean conch” chapter in our fishing book, it took hours! I chopped them up and fried them up into fritters—good stuff!
























And, here are pictures of John’s other project—promoting a new Olympic sport—dinghy sunbathing! As you can see he is perfecting the art of lounging in the dinghy rather than stretching out on a towel on the beach sand. Close examination will reveal the sandy knees and elbows of the initial beach trial. Yep! Dinghy sunbathing is the way to go!