Crabbing - July 2nd, 2008

We strapped 3 crab traps to the bow of the boat on opening day of crab season. Deetz, Kate, Ken, and myself onboard. The wind died as soon as we finished dropping the traps. It was eerie watching a regata in the distance as the boats floated almost motionless. A weird storm didn't bring any wind and dropped warm showers on us as we sat and drank and waited for the crab to fill our traps. We probably pulled up 15 or more crab but could only keep 3 of them. One of them was the largest red rock I have ever seen and one of the Dungeness was as big as they get as well.

We learned a hard lesson as we approached the locks in the dark. We didn't give enough room to a barge that came out and the massive amount of water it displaced threw us uncontrollably into a barrier around a bridge post. I couldn't get to the bow in time but the pulpit didn't break like I expected. Deetz was able to push off the stern enough to keep the grill from being smashed. So we got away unscathed except from an insult yelled by some hecklers on a tug boat nearby, "fucking idiots!". Kate yelled back at them pretty good, but Deetz and I couldn't deny that they were right.