Portland Vacation - Day 4 : CRABBYTACK!

Day 4 might be my favorite day of the trip. Kelly's dad took us out on his boat to go crabbing. I don't think any of us Angelinos had been crabbing before. So we woke up that morning and made pancakes with fresh raspberries from the garden to give us our strength.

We met Kelly's dad at the coast. He had already been up since about 4:30am for some early fishing and had already caught another salmon for dinner.

So off we go on the boat. Don't we look so colorful!

Steven and I were the only nerds who wore life jackets. Hey better to be safe than sorry!

Here is Kelly giving us a lesson on the crabs. Two things to look out for: size and gender.

If it's too small or a female then you need to throw it back.

Kelly's dad is setting the bait which is the fish carcass leftovers from our salmon dinner the night before.

Kelly teaches me how to hold the crab so you don't get pinched.

I did it!

So we set all the cages in the water and found a nice sandy area for lunch.

We docked the boat of course. This picture is cool because you get to see the boat and the inlet of water where we were crabbing. It leads to the ocean a few miles to the right but the water was much more choppy.

Here's our little lunch spot. Kelly has a picture of all of us in this little structure someone had built that I'll post as soon as I get a hold of it.

After lunch we go to retrieve our cages. You pull up the rope...

...and see what you got.

And that's how you go crabbing. It's a lot of fun and while you wait you get to talk with your buds, eat a delicious lunch and check out the locals:

After the crabbing we walked around the little town there by the dock and went to the antique store. We spent a surprising amount of time in that place. I didn't tink the guys would be into it, but they were:

Then we headed to another beach where the boys wanted to get in the water. They are obviously crazy since it was freezing out there. This is me putting on Steven's shirt for some added warmth.

Here they go running into the water.

Steven kept me warm on the beach.

Mission accomplished. They only lasted about 5 minutes but that was enough to get applause from a few people on the beach who were bundled up in some jackets.

Ahh the gorgeous West Coast.

So we get home and Kelly's dad has already boiled and took the main shell off the crab. It was up to us to get all the meat out so we had ourselves a crab crackin' party.

The is the bowl of the shells to discard. The smaller bowl that you can barely see behind it is all the actual meat.

I think we caught 9 crabs total. Afterward, Kelly's dad told us to dump the shells in the river behind the house to feel all the little critters there. John and Jacob saw this as an opportunity to make an offering to the river gods. Those silly boys.

Here is what our dinner looked like. Delicious, right?

That night we had a bunch to drink and we sat around the campfire making s'mores, watching shooting stars, and arguing about cultural things through late into night like true Oxy alumn.