Five-Minute Freewrite Tuesday: Crab!
On the coast here in Washington state, native food means dungeness crab.
Just last week, I wandered the marina in Westport, Wash., and caught a pic of this guy trying to scrabble off the dock. The boat captain was measuring his catch for the day and a few had fallen out of the pot.
I think the crab ended up measuring big enough to keep, so, sad for him, he's probably cooked now.
I have some experience with crab. I've worked as a 'crab shaker' in Westport before. I won't describe the shaking process in detail; let's just say I know how to crack and shake every bit of meat out of our specimen above, fast enough to make piece rate.
On one occasion, I offloaded a ton or so of crab from one of the boats. Only once, and I barely survived that. It was three hours of tossing these suckers into a bucket, while standing in the hold on top a pile of live crab.
Angry live crab, I should say. And those pinchers are strong. At the end of the job, my jeans were shredded, my gloves were lost and shredded, and I had scores of welts on my thighs and hands, which didn't heal for a few weeks.
There's a trick to avoiding that pain. I guess you're supposed to grab them from the back, so they can't get you. Well, I tried, but all their friends around them were pinching away ... I never figured out the trick.
I didn't go back after the first day. I did, however, make $120 for three hours work. Paid my electric bill. Then I found a job washing dishes for Denny's, thank goodness.
The Betty Lee was offloading crab (I assume it was crab) on the day of my marina photoshoot, at the very dock where I had my offloading adventure.
On Fisherman's Boardwalk behind the marina, this group was catching crab too. They were throwing what I call 'mini crab pots' with their fishing poles, waiting just a little while and then pulling them in. It seemed like they were taking a decent haul.
I'm pretty sure this guy was just fishing, as opposed to crabbing. He wasn't too keen on having his photo taken, but he did provide a nice closing shot. Thanks, anonymous fishing dude!
This Westport photoshoot will probably provide my next full-length photography post. Stay tuned...
Lol. Never encountered crabs much and I am sure I wouldn't be interested. I have an irrational fear of their kind thanks to scorpions.
Love the rest of the shots. I love water bodies as much as my thalassophobia wouldn't let me be in them.
Crabs aren't that fun ... I forgot to mention how much they stink! It took about 3 washes to get the smell out of my clothes (which means when I worked there, it never came out!).
Being a commercial fisherman, I like to see pictures of working boats and docks. I run crab traps in the summer and I would not want to be standing in a boat's haul with them, they are mad enough by just dumping them out of a trap.
Yeah, you can understand what it was like. It's a great option in a financial emergency, but not for a regular job. ... I have about a 100 pics from that day in Westport; eventually I'll have a full photo post out of it.
can't wait to see them