Mexico 2014-Part 7

I found a queen conch shell. Like imagine those gorgeous shells you would expect to find walking along a white sand beach somewhere tropical, that's what I found. 

We had just come back in from a brief kayaking trip and Kit jumped out of his kayak only to discover a conch shell right next to his feet. He worked to clean it off the algae a bit in the sand, so that we could see the colors more visibly. I thought it was so cool that he just happened to find one that I was a bit envious! I don't believe in taking shells from the ocean, but I have always had a dream to find one of those gorgeous shells. As I was walking around in the tide, I came across {what I thought was} a big mossy rock. As I flipped it over a adorable buggy-eyed queen conch scurried back into her nook.

I didn't get a picture of my friends' eyes, but here's a similar cutie. The way they just bug out and look at you, still melts my heart.

Kit, in seeing what I had practically dropped his find and ran over to me. A couple of people walking along the beach also took notice and came to spectate. I asked Kit to go and tell Erron I had something exciting to show him, and Kit ran off to find him.

When Erron made his way down to the beach, I'm sure he wasn't expecting anything special. In all reality, I find pretty much everything cool and exciting. But when he came over, he genuinely looked proud of my find, and wanted to hear all about it! I showed him the cute buggy creature inside and fell more in love the more I held the little guy.

While all this was going on, I was having an inner crisis. Something that I look back and feel really badly about. But I'm happy about the way it turned out. In all honesty, my first thought when I found my friend was "how can I get this home to the States?" My first thought didn't even involve the safety of this cute little creature! I remember telling Kit basically that I wanted to smuggle it home, at any cost. Looking back, this pains my heart. Here I am, professing my love for nature and telling everybody that all God's creations are magnificent, but yet when I found something I'd dreamt about finding my entire life, I threw every moral I had into the salty Mexican wind.

While we weren't sure at this point if it was legal to take these shells out of their habitat, I wanted to show the rest of the group. So Erron helped me smuggle my friend up to the condo. {Smuggle because I didn't want a bystander to somehow report me.} Everybody at the condo seemed to really enjoy the find! We took pictures, and watch my friend poke in and out. 

Kit Googled the Queen Conch and we found that it was an endangered species. It was about this time that my guilt really started to set in, I didn't want to kill this creature so that I had a shell to collect dust in my closet back home! I mean, I'm positive that's the reason they were going extinct anyways! 

After my deliberation I decided that I wanted to take my friend to my new favorite spot on Earth. Where she could live in peace, the blue lagoon.

We snorkeled around a bit, looking for the perfect place, and we eventually came to a rather deep part, with lots of sand. I dove down and placed my friend on the sand, burying her slightly. After I had surfaced, Erron went down and shook his fins back and fourth to create a huge cloud of sand to hide my friend in. When we were comfortable with her situation, we both left. I know that she is going to live a long life in the Caribbean, and ultimately I'm glad I was able to make the right choice in releasing her. Plus, maybe somebody else can now make a connection with her!

XO Q.Conch!