Update on Conch Shell harvesting by the Chinese. From the Conch Page of Sandy Estabrook's Abaco Guide More on the Chinese Plans for the Bahamas     The Chinese arrived in the Abacos in 2013. Their purpose, build a bridge from Grand Bahama to Abaco! AND build commercial port facilities at Coopers Town, mainland Great Abaco! By 2018 The Port facility was complete but not in operation. The Grand Abaco bridge was never built. Still, the Chinese expansion in the Bahamas has continued and has been agressive to say the least. Their projects are scattered throughout many islands. Their story begins with Conch. First a brief excerpt from my journal of an early trip to Abaco by boat. "Old Bahama Bay marina at West End Grand Bahama is the closest point from Florida en route to Abaco in the Bahamas and where we usually stay our first night. Back in the day it was called The Jack Tar Marina and was a few miles from West End Village. Most restaurants will come and get you so we made an arrangement with Sidney Johnson to take us to his restaurant, Big Sid’s Bayshore Restaurant & Bar. Our driver drove through West End on the far side of town, on the main road which passes along the bay (The Bahama Bank). All you see are mounds & mounds of conch shells by the thousands in piles, some up to eight feet high. One would think there is a contest to see who built the highest mound. It becomes immediately obvious a good many of the town folks make their living conching and have no place for disposal of the shells once the conch was removed. So they piled them up at their cleaning locations which they would later move." There they remained for decades until the Chinese arrived in 2013. Knowing the Chinese as one might, and being as thrifty as they are, lead us to the video above. Interestingly, the video had been removed from its source on the internet. We were lucky to have DL'd a copy which we do with all videos featured on our web pages.