Saturday, June 18, 2016

May 27, 2016 Egg Island bonfire

We were enjoying our coffee this morning when Sea Ya came up to our boat.  We had talked yesterday about going to Egg Island to snorkel the wreck and check out the area.  They were ready to go, so we picked up anchor and headed out, too.  We planned to go to the west side of Egg Island where we had anchored a couple times last year.  There is a nice beach there and lots of coral to snorkel. It was rough on the west side, so we turned around and went to a cove with a beach on the south end that we had passed earlier. 
when there are 2 boats on the water, it's a race
and we're in the lead
squall moving the opposite way

After we both anchored, Phil jumped in and swam to check out his anchor.  Then he came over to check ours.  He had found a huge conch that was different than the others we have seen.  So he wanted to swim the area to look for more.  We ended up taking our dinghy and checking out the rocky points of the bay for fish.  We now snorkel holding the dinghy by a rope that runs the length of the dingy.  Dave, and sometimes both of us, carry a Hawaiian sling spear for fishing.  They are propelled by stretching rubber tubing, similar to shooting a bow.  The Bahamas don’t allow anything with a trigger, maybe because they don’t allow firearms either.  I am usually happy with just viewing the fish and keeping the dinghy near Dave.  You want to get the fish in the dinghy asap.  Dave spear fished 2 strawberry grouper and 1 flounder.  We also found a couple conch. 
strawberry grouper
flounder

We took everything to shore to clean.  If you clean the fish off the back of your boat, you may draw predators to the area.  Then you can’t swim off of your boat.  We made a make shift table to clean everything in the water, like our friend, Cracky, did in the Exumas.  It wasn’t the same without his umbrella for shade.  After Dave removed the conch from the shell, Phil cleaned them.  He had a dish he wanted to make with them.  These conch were different to clean.  We had noticed discarded shells that had the entire pointed end cut off to get the meat out.  So that’s what Dave did.  The “foot” was larger  & softer, but tougher.  We weren’t sure if we should eat that part, but kept it.  Phil looked up this type of conch and thought it was called king conch. 
filleting the flounder
cleaning conch
king conch or helmet conch, points are blunted compared to queen conch
different look than queen conch
Teresa's new earrings

We decided to have a bonfire on the beach.  We went back to our boats to change clothes.  We put the fish in foil with seasoning and brought it back to the beach.  We cooked the fish and heated baked beans over the fire.  Phil’s conch dish was a warm tomato based dish.  The conch were still kind of chewy.  Not sure if they needed to cook longer, or if that’s the way there were.  Teresa brought marshmallow, so we roasted them for dessert.  We wouldn’t bother with flounder again.  Too many bones through out the meat. 
starting our bonfire
found the playground
our boats in the background
awesome beach for a bonfire
have previously boxed wine, will travel

It was fun to enjoy a bonfire on the beach, but the bugs were horrible.  We used bug spray, which we hate.  Back at the boat, we had to shower to get rid of the bug spray.  We had a rough night sleeping with more no-see-ums in the boat. 
doesn't get more peaceful than this
beautiful sky tonight


couldn't get over the beautiful sky tonight
moving the table closer to the fire to help keep the bugs away, didn't work










No comments:

Post a Comment