Today, I almost died while preparing dinner. Well, maybe not almost, but I got a little panicked for sure. It is crabbing season, and I love crab. Mike and I got our first crab pot last year, and had a great time scoring some dinner offshore of Whidbey Island. This year, we are getting a late start. There is one month of the season left, and we've heard that the supply of male crabs, of a legal size, has really dropped off in the waters near Bellingham. Nevertheless, Mike and I rowed out to set the pot twice in Wildcat Cove near our house last week.
I talked to myself on the way out. "You can do this. It's not that far. You've got some snacks in your belly and strong arms. There are people on the beach that can call for help. It's only windy past the point, so as long as you get back inside, you'll be fine. Mike knows I'm out here, and you've got a PFD on..." Turns out my intuition wasn't so far off. It was windy. I was alone. And the pot was far. The rowing was slow and difficult, I just kept pushing on, and breathing, concentrating on getting the oars in the water.
I finally reached the float, which was hard to see in the setting sun. I hauled up the pot, which had 8 or 10 crabs in it, and tucked the line under my foot to tow the pot in the water. I could see that the wind was already blowing me farther from the Cove. I got to rowing as hard as I could, but with the wind and the pot dragging, I quickly noticed that I wasn't making any progress. I stopped, arms burning and heart pounding, and pulled the pot in. I set it on the edge of the boat, hoping the crab claws weren't big enough to grab the boat material and tear a hole. I set off again, this time sitting up on the boat edge, and noticed slow but sure progress toward shore. I ducked behind Whiskey Rock to get out of the wind, and went around it to catch back up with the mouth of the cove. Once inside cove, the tide was pushing me in and I was safe. Time to figure out what to do with these flailing crustaceans.
I reached in with the gloves and grabbed the crabs, one at a time, from the back. I pulled them out, and checked their bellies. Female. Female. Female. Splash, splash, splash. The last one I checked was the largest. A male. Over a 7" wide shell. Legal to take. I felt like this one must have been a gift from God, to encourage me to be brave. Once I was back on shore, I popped him in the cooler with some water and tied the boat back onto the roof of Judy.
When I got home, I knew I needed to kill the crab that I had taken from the sea. I had heard that instead of boiling the crab alive, you could take a screwdriver, stick it in the back and pry up the top shell. The guts would come with it and then you could boil the crab just after it dies. That seemed better for some reason... I put a big pot of water on the stove and found the biggest screw driver I could in the garage. I approached the cooler, grabbed the crab, and pinned him, claws first, on the driveway. I said a quick prayer of thanks, and jammed that metal rod into the poor son of a gun. I popped him open like a soda. I wish I'd been able to be faster, but I'd never done this before. It suffered a bit, grabbing onto it's own innards before I could manage to break the thing in half, which finished it off. I rinsed it off, and took it inside.
