Gifts from the Sea

     A wild Norte that lasted for something like 36 hours ended with a  clear, cool morning and a very low tide, a perfect time for beach walking.

It was also, evidently, the perfect time for something else, as the exposed sand flats were hosting several people busily gathering something and placing the items in buckets and reinforced bags. (If you look closely, you can see a person in this photo.)

Remembering what was called the shell-hunting posture from my long-ago Florida youth, when one of my jobs was collecting particular species that washed up so that the shells could be sold in the gift shop owned by my mother and aunt (no one suspecting in those days that such creatures could become endangered), when I ran across someone close enough to engage in conversation, I had enough Spanish to do exactly that.

    As I suspected, these folks were gathering molluscs, particularly the conchs washed in by the Norte's high tides, but not for their beauty or tourist value (though the variety most commonly found on the beach here is a lovely and non-endangered member of the conch family). Instead, they were harvesting what would be very expensive seafood if purchased in a restaurant. My informant's plan for his was ceviche, the ubiquitous Latin American dish of raw fish or shellfish cured in lime juice and spices. (Not something I eat, having heard too many stories of parasites lurking in such things, though most people here seem to consume the stuff without a problem.)

    These particular conchs were doomed, having been stranded in a place where getting them back to their sea-bottom habitat was not among the choices. I suspect that the people who have lived on this coast for the last few thousand years have always viewed the post-storm conch inundation as one of the sea's many gifts.