The "I Can't Believe I Really Ate That!" Story

It was an ordinary day. I'm eating conch salad! Or at least I tried it!! Carol and I and Jerry and Just Sue took a snorkel trip on Providenciales, which is in the Turks and Caicos island chain, with a dive shop called Silver Deep. We traveled to Little Water Cay, aka Iguana Island, where there is a nature reserve. Iguanas everywhere, and of all sizes. Neat place. It is a protected area and the iguanas know it. They beg for food whenever they see people coming through the trails on the island. After the exploring, we were taken by boat to Halfmoon beach to do some snorkeling. Our guide for the day was "Lucky", a tall thin island native who was as happy as they come. We arrived on the beach where the water was shallow and after talking with us about the sand dollars and snorkeling, he told us to get in the water and he would be right back after diving for a few conch at another location. Conch live in the big shells that you see on the bottom of the ocean and can usually find for sale in gift shops. And then ...... he left with the boat!! We searched for sand dollars, but didn't find any. Then we entered the water to snorkel and it started to rain. And, boy did it rain! Really hard. The rain was cold and forced us to stay under the water as best we could to stay warm. We had our snorkel gear on so we made the best of it and searched for the fish. Couldn't find many fish either. And ... where was Lucky? After a time we started to worry that we had been deposited on this island with no shells and no fish and no hope of ever returning. "Yikes, are we on Survivor?" Just Sue said. Then we heard the boat coming. Finally. Lucky arrived and we all got out of the water while he prepared lunch for us. He had this filthy cutting board with an equally filthy knife and he proceeded to punch a hole in the top of the shell of the conch to release the vacuum that was holding the conch in the shell, then pulled the conch out of the shell. Pretty gross looking crustacean. He cut the couch into small pieces on his cutting board, placed it in a bowl and added peppers, onions and a vinaigrette dressing and served everyone conch salad with rum and cookies. YUMMY!! Not! It was so chewyI couldn't eat mine. Gave it to Jerry. My lunch that day was rum punch and cookies. Not bad, though. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - Photos from the top are a collage from my scrapbook showing the iguana, Lucky after he got the really gross conch out of the shell he has in his right hand, and LDub with Jerry and Carol eating conch salad. Notice I only have rum punch in my hand, no salad.