The Deadliest Catch

Ahh, the smell of the ocean, the breeze coming off the water, the sounds of the waves licking at the shore. There is nothing like visiting the Pacific to do a little crabbing! Whenever we are here in the summer we make an effort to get all our gear together and go out to the bay at Netarts (knee-tarts) and see how many tasty crab legs we can get for dinner.

And is it just me or does Netarts sound like something you would call your brother when he is tickin' you off? "Quit it you netart!" Maybe you would disagree but I think it every time I hear it.

But I digress. This past Saturday we got our chance to visit the bay and participate in our version of The Deadliest Catch. Usually we watch an episode or two of that show the night before we go but we forgot this time. It's our good luck charm. And we forgot. Dun, dun, dun.... [think ominous music]

Well, the day started out nice enough. It was supposed to be 95 in Vancouver so we were excited to spend the day at the much cooler shore. Much cooler. Cold actually. It was fine though. I had 2 sweatshirts, 2 regular shirts, a life jacket, and a hat to keep me warm. I wasn't worried.

Tyson wasn't worried either. You can't tell in this picture but he is actually wearing shorts. He confessed to me later that he wished he had pants on. Guess I wasn't the only cold one. It really was a lovely day though. Usually visibility isn't that good and the sun is rarely out when we go crabbing. You can see that it is gorgeous out there.

Here I am enjoying the first of many cookies. I like to prime my appetite before eating crab. It makes 'em taste better.

Tyson was the man when it came to throwing the pots in the water. We baited them with shad and turkey. The turkey didn't go over so well but those crab were all about the shad (which smelled really bad by the way)

Ah! Our first pot came up! Crab! Unfortunately none of them were big enough to keep :o( So all of them had to be thrown back in.

Ah, here we see the first casualty of the day. See that yellow thing in the water? That would be the measuring tool that we use to know if the crab are big enough to keep. DIL (Dad-in-law) accidentally threw the measurer in the water instead of the too-small-crab that he held in his other hand. Tyson and DIL tried to grab it before it sank but to no avail. (you would think that these things would float wouldn't you?)

Well, MIL and I had a good laugh while they tried to retrieve it until we realized that without a way to measure these guys we would have a hard time knowing which ones we could bring home. And there is a hefty fine if you get caught with crab that don't fit the regulations.

So we threw out our anchor, ok yes, we anchored on shore, while DIL ran out to buy a new measurer (he bought 2 this time). We chose this fine moment to have our lunch.

Ok! We made it back out onto the water.

So, look at the picture here. See that Doritos bag that DIL has? Although it looks like he is savoring the last bits of a dorito well done, he's actually drinking water. We left the cups at home and had to get a little creative.

I couldn't breathe while I drank because the smell of watered down Doritos made my stomach cringe. I couldn't look while I drank either because you just couldn't get all those little bits out before you added water and the floaties... oh the floaties. It still grosses me out a little. But it worked!

Oh, and see the hat on DIL's head? About 10 min or so ago that very hat blew off his head as we were racing back to the pots we left behind when we anchored on shore. Luckily it floated longer than that darn measurer and Tyson was able to save the day and fish it out of the water.

Ok, the next casualty. As Tyson was grabbing the rejected crab out of the pot one of them got a hold of him. In spite of his ultra thick rubber gloves that darn crab still drew blood. It wasn't as bad as last year when DIL got pinched without gloves on, but it still hurt! Poor baby. (I'm still surprised he didn't get lock jaw or bird flu or something from that open wound on those dirty fingers. I guess that's the life during The Deadliest Catch.)

So, not to be outdone by his finger, Tyson's legs decided to have a say of their own. Think he still wishes he wore pants? And yes, since he was sitting the majority of the time his knees were the only parts of his legs burned. Ha ha.

Although Tyson appreciates every opportunity to improve his farmer's tan, I prefer to only expose parts of myself to the sun that would have been shown in 1830. Therefore, only the backs of my hands, my ears, and my chin were fried. Very very attractive.

Well, things pretty much improved after that. We only ran over about 7 buoys and broke the key to the boat motor off in the ignition right before we went home. What a funny day.

Last casualty of the day? 6 delicious crab: 5 rock, and 1 dungeness.

I love crab.