I've been back in Washington, DC for about a week now, but prior to that I spent about five days in The Bahamas and five days in the Turks & Caicos Islands. I feel like I've known about The Bahamas my entire life, but Turks & Caicos only recently came on my radar. It is a British Overseas Territory that is just on the other side of The Bahamas to Florida.
The Turks & Caicos are considering shark protections, so I went down there with Rick MacPherson to discuss with government, the private sector, and community members whether or not my employer could play a role. I make it a point to not talk about political decisions on this blog anymore, but I can say that we had some very good discussions.
We spent an entire day on Grand Turk and spent most of the afternoon with a biologist who has been working with the local fishermen. We got to meet Big Bitch. I am not sure if the boat is named after the fisherman, or if the fisherman is named after the boat. I hope to find out on my second trip.
Conch is a new thing to me. I had a bite of it almost every day in The Bahamas and TCI. Normally creatures living in shells aren't very appealing to me. When I see shellfish, I think of the seagulls who would shit on the mussels along the beach in Cape Cod. I prefer my seafood in fish form.
Conch is good, don't get me wrong. I just think shells are gross. Even so, one of the fishermen gave me some conch pistol, which I am told has the same affect as Viagra.
During my 10 day trip to the Caribbean I flew on 9 airplanes. A few of them were small like this. It would have been 10 airplanes, but it was raining in Bimini and my plane couldn't land.
I know how excited you are to look at my work photos, so I posted a few more to Facebook.