Went way east this time, all the way over to American Shoal. This is the next lighthouse going east from Sand Key Light, with shallows all around and lots of nice healthy coral. Here’s a sampling of what the reef looks like in the general area of American Shoal.
Conch Shell
By kat | May 31, 2011
This Queen Conch was just existing peacefully in the turtle grass around Rock Key last November. I didn’t touch him, just took the picture and then surfaced. There are conch all over in the grass and crawling over the sand in the waters around Key West.
I don’t have a book for identification of conch so I just don’t know much about it. I do know they’re protected here, and you can’t disturb them or eat them. I think all the conch fritters in our Key West restaurants have conch bits in them which are from the Bahamas, like perhaps the nearby-to-Florida islands called The Abacos. It takes three years for the conch to grow large enough for us to eat. There are efforts to set up a commercial conch farm in The Bahamas but right now most conch that’s eaten comes from Turks & Caicos.
Conchs eat grass and have no known parasites. They do make pearls.
This is some beautiful pillar coral on the reef near Key West. That’s a parrot fish poking his head from behind one of the pillars. Parrot Fish are hard to capture on film, since for some reason they are spooky and skittish around me and my camera. That actually surprises me, since nobody I know of spears them or otherwise messes with parrot fish. No good to eat, according to most people.
Pillar Coral colonies are kind of rare around here, so every time I see one I get excited and take as many pictures as possible. During the day their little fuzzy flower-type things (polyps) come out making them look softer. When large pillars fall over, new smaller pillars will grow from the fallen, horizontal pieces.