After enjoying an evening at the coast, we met up with our friends Dave and Linda. Months earlier we were at a Girls Camp fundraiser for the Young Women(girls ages 12-18 in our church)and our bid won a day of crabbing! We have been looking forward to this ever since! WITH GOOD REASON! We were crabbing for Dungeness Crab, truly some of the tastiest sea creatures on earth!
What a day we had! I guess I had beter start at the beginning...
Friday night we met up with our friends and drove over to the bay where we would be starting our adventure. It was fun hearing of past trips they have taken as they have been doing this for some time and are quite the experts! We said good night with the reminder that we would need to be in the hotel parking lot at 5:45 AM! Yep, you read that right--we are talking before the sun would be up! We took our foul-weather gear and bid them adieu.
Night time update: No kids came in and woke us up! Glorious!!
Early morning update: 5:30AM comes pretty early!
We snapped a shot of our outfits before heading out to the parking lot.
Then the Big Guy Lowe couldn't help but take another quick picture...can you tell we were excited for this adventure to begin??
Just in case you were wondering if I was serious about it still being dark, this is a picture of Linda at the launch. Can you see her? No! That's because it's still DARK!! We were on the water by 6AM!
Thoughts of all the crab we would be eating kept us going...ahhhh crab cocktails...
Once we were in the boat, Dave and Linda began showing us all the things that go into a day of crabbing. The first lesson began in baiting the traps. Nothing but the best for today--we had turkey legs and salmon heads! That would lure me somewhere--not! Then we even made things yummier for the crabs by slathering some truly foul smelling petrolium type product on the bait. We were assured that the crabs would be going crazy for it. I agreed that they must be crazy, but was willing to do whatever was needed to get those crabs into the traps!
Once the traps were baited, it was time to get them out in the water!! YAHOO!!
Dave and Linda were awesome the entire day! They let the Big Guy Lowe and I do as much as we were able. We didn't always do it right the first time, or even the second, but we did okay!
Once the traps were in the water, we let them sit about 30 minutes until we went back and began checking for crabs...(Here crabbie crabbie!)
It was so exciting. Linda said that pulling up the traps was like Christmas, and she was right! We were so excited as we pulled up trap after trap. Unfortunately, we can only keep male crab that measure big enough. There were times when our traps only contained female crab or little guys, but then there were other times when our traps came up with keepers and we were all cheering!
Those crabs were no match for us! I look like quite a pro holding that crab, don't I? This is more like how I felt touching/holding those squirmy, pinching crustaceans!
But we were thrilled as "keepers" kept finding their way into our traps!
Now the picture that really told the (my) story! Look at the size of that crab in my left hand--HUGE!!!
Now, don't anyone get the wrong idea here--I had a great time. I was SO excited that we were crabbing and I loved seeing the traps come up with keepers. I just found out that I was pretty wimpy when it came to grabbing them out of the traps. I couldn't believe how jumpy I was, and if the truth be told, I might have even made those girly-squeals (how embarrasing!). It was all great though, and just gave the Big Guy Lowe more opportunity to grab crab. Maybe someday I will get as good as our friends at reaching in and handling those creatures, but I like to think that I provided some comic relief during the trip when I did try. I can't help but laugh now!
Dave took a few minutes to tease a crab for the sake of our boys. I was taking a movie as he showed us how to check the crab for density of meat in their legs. It just so happens that they seem to hate that. It was fascinating watching them though.
Overall, the day was great! We learned so much about crabbing from people that really know their stuff, we spent the day on the water which is always wonderful, we ended up getting over 30 crab--we were told it was the high for the day, and most of all, we got to know Dave and Linda better which was wonderful.
At the end of the day, we were tired!
I think the Big Guy Lowe could have kept going as long as Dave and Linda wanted to keep throwing the traps, but the time had come to call it a day.
After dropping Linda and I off at the dock to take the crab to get boiled, Dave and Scott waited for a spot at the launch.
Joe, the owner of the little store on shore, has a cooker out back used to boil crab as soon as you get off the boat--we're all about safe eating here!
Once they were finished boiling, they were put into a cold water bath and then we packed them in ice for the drive home. What a day!
Today you could pick us out of the congregation at church by the sunburned faces we had. Dave and Linda got some sun too...or maybe it was just the glow from having such a great day crabbing! Either way, the crab tastes great and our memories are priceless.
