Leaning Tower Of....

Once again, crabbing has been good this year.  This is just three days catch - Jane likes to stack them up like this.  We have added so much to this that I am tired of crab for dinner...  Jane, infinite patience that she has, has picked most of the meat from these, and the many since these, so that we can fit it in the freezer here on the boat.

Leaning Tower Of....

Melancholia

I really love getting under way early in the morning!  This morning it was dead calm, the water like glass.  Just a tiny burst of power got Eolian moving out of the slip, ghosting along at far less than a walking pace.  We were moving so slow in fact, that the rudder didn't bite and start to turn her stern until we were well out in the waterway.  A couple of quick bursts in Fwd and Rev (you single screw boaters know what I mean), got her bow pointed down the waterway, and then out of the marina.  A warm, calm, peaceful sunny morning, latté in hand, we left the marina and headed for the Islands.

The melancholy part is, that despite it being a perfect day to be on the water, warm and sunny, this could be the last trip out to the Islands for us this year.  So, in just the same way that you savor the last glorious days of summer when there is a hint of fall in the air telling you, that like everything else, it has to come to an end, the trip across Rosario Strait to Thatcher Pass was filled with not only the enjoyment of a perfect day on the water, but also with the memories we made this summer:

• Set a new record boat speed:  8.7 kt under yankee alone, in 35+ kt of wind, on our way to Sucia
  
• Speaking of Sucia, we ended up making four visits there this year.  It is a magical place...
  
• We discovered that going by north of Guemes Island and on to Sucia, one can mostly ignore the tides...
  
• We discovered a wind tunnel between Orcas Island and Clark/Barnes islands...  if there is wind anywhere, it will be here...
  
• Truly a mountain of crab!
  
• The stack-pack I made for the mizzen is wonderful!
  
• New friends on s/v Odyssey and m/v Konocti Bay
• And many, many nites at anchor, throughout the islands.
  

So...  here I sit, typing away in the last days of summer and the last days of the sailing season for us.  I am endeavoring to be present in each and every moment so that I will have enough days and nites stored away to get me thru the long, wet, dark winter that is inexorably coming...

Melancholia

'Tis The Season

In years past, we always cleaned the crab before bringing them aboard, cooked them, and then refrigerated or froze it.  Because they are ubiquitous, we used Zip-lock bags for storage.

But after a disappointingly short time in the refrigerator or freezer, the crab looses it's sweet, just-caught flavor.  And the flesh turns kind of leathery.

So this year, Jane is trying something different.  First, she is picking all the meat.  Tedious work, but realistically, most of the crab we froze last year ended up getting picked anyway to make crab cakes.  So she is just doing this up front.

And here is the big change:  instead of Zip-lock bags, we are using a vacuum sealer.  As opposed to the polyethylene Zip-locks, the Food Saver bags are made of a film that is impervious to oxygen, and presumably also to that common "refrigerator/freezer taste".

Bonus:  out of the shell, the crab takes up a lot less space in the freezer!

And of course, none of this applies to the crab which we eat on board, fresh from the sea!

'Tis The Season

An Early Morning Metaphysical Experience

The alarm goes off at 05:30.  The sun isn't up yet, but the sky is light., and the water is dead calm - it's a mirror.
I jump out of bed and throw on my groady sweats.   The crab pots are on the fantail - I prepped them yesterday afternoon.  I get down into the dinghy and Jane lowers them down to me.
And I start the outboard and head toward our Sacred Spot - the one that has yielded so many crabs in years past.  I veer to avoid the other boats - everyone else is sleeping, and our old Sears Gamefisher outboard is noisy.
As I motor along, skimming on a mirror, the sun clears the horizon and floods the world with golden light.  I promise you, there is nothing like being on the water at dawn!
I return to Eolian, the pots set, and I make Jane and I some lattes, and we watch the harbor slowly awake...

An Early Morning Metaphysical Experience

Jane's Crab Chowder

So it's January and you still have some crabs in the freezer. They're too old to enjoy steamed...  what do you do?  You could make crab cakes... again.  Or...

You could make Jane's Crab Chowder!

Jane's Crab Chowder

• Two slightly freezer burned Dungeness crabs, still frozen.
• Two cups water
• Three tbsp olive oil
• One medium onion, chopped
• One cup finely chopped celery
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red Bell pepper
• One cup dry white cooking wine
• Two tbsp tomato paste
• Two cups whipping cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

Put the frozen crabs (cooked before freezing, or not) in a large pan and add the water.   Bring to a boil covered and then simmer 15-20 minutes.  Cool the crab.  Pour the stock thru a sieve and save.  Crack the crab and pick the meat.  If you would like a stronger crab flavor in the stock, you can put the shells back in the stock and simmer for another 15 minutes before straining.

In another medium pot, heat the oil over low heat.  Add the onion, celery and Bell pepper and cook, covered, stirring often until very soft and translucent - but not browned; maybe 15 minutes.  Really, you're steaming these veggies.

Add the wine and tomato paste to the vegetables and cook over medium heat, uncovered, until the wine has been reduced by half, about 10 minutes.  Add the whipping cream, the crab meat, and the retained crab boil stock and simmer uncovered over low heat 15 minutes or so to smooth out the flavors and thicken it up a bit.

If you like, the chowder can be served with a dollop of sour cream in the middle of each bowl.

Jane's Crab Chowder

Crabbing our way thru the San Juans

Pulling the crab trap

Retirement is great!  We have little or no schedule, and can stay or go as we please. 

I don't think we have ever spent as many days anchored in the same spot as we have this year.  After all, why not?  In the past, we have always felt the urge to get on to the next place after waking up at anchor.  Not this year.

We got to Parks Bay and just...  stayed.  Other boats came and went.  But we stayed, pulling the crab trap twice a day, morning and nite.  Each time the trap was heavy with crabs; we near-limited each day.  These are Dungeness crabs, and are big ones - the kind where one crab serves two for dinner.  Our freezer is filling up.

I freely admit that the slow lifestyle at anchor combined with the lack of connectivity have made me remiss in my blogging.  I apologize.  Sort of.

This morning we awoke at anchor in Roche Harbor.  And civilization.  And the constant coming and going of boats and seaplanes.   And the ability to go ashore and buy sugar, which we ran out of this morning because I neglected to check our supply before we left the dock.  My bad.

Now, I gotta go check the crab pot.

Crabbing our way thru the San Juans

Come a leeetle cloooser...

Crabbing in the wilds of the San Juan Islands, where Internet connectivity is "spotty" to say the least. No phone connectivity at all.

Come a leeetle cloooser...

Crabs, Part 2.5: How to kill and clean them

If you are squeamish about where your food comes from, you might want to skip this post.   On the other hand, if you are ignorant as to where it comes from, then you should definitely read on.

I previously did a three-part series about crabs - how to catch 'em and cook 'em. In the last part of the series I talked about how to kill and clean them, but didn't provide much visual guidance.  Here I will correct that oversight.

Here is a freshly caught and very much alive rock crab.  I have flipped him onto his back (and that is the correct pronoun - he is a male.  See the narrow, pointed plate centered on his abdomen? If he were a female, it would be broad and almost rounded).  When approaching a crab to do this flip, always, always grab him from the back.  He can't reach you there with his pinchers (but he will certainly try!).  Once on his back he will settle right down, and often fold his legs up as if he were asleep.

To cause instantaneous death, hit the crab firmly with something hard right on that central plate. Here I am using Death Bringer (which sometimes also serves as a winch handle on Eolian).  Not only will the crab die instantly, but you will also have broken the main body plate (underneath the tringular one) in two - a necessity for the next step.

Now grasp all the legs on one side, with your index finger laying right along the broken central plate. Roll your hand around that index finger, lifting up the legs and pressing down on the edge of your hand and index finger.  If that central plate has been broken, you'll have a handfull of legs in one hand and the rest of the crab in the other (it takes two hands, but I needed one for the camera).  The second set of legs comes out even easier.

Finally, there are a few unappetizing bits to remove from the legs.  In the picture you can see the crab's gills - those tannish-colored pointed things - just pull them off.  And sometimes some of the unmentionable internals are found still attached.  Usually a quick flick of the wrist will fling them off.

Now, right into the steam bath with those legs, and get the butter melting!

Crabs, Part 2.5: How to kill and clean them

Crabs, Part 3: How to cook and eat them

How does one dispatch a crab? OK, sorry - that's a euphemism. How does one kill a crab in order to cook and eat it? There: I've faced up to it.

In two previous postings, we've met crabs, and learned how to catch them. Now how do we get them into the cooking pot?

When we first moved onto the water, we were told a lot of things. One method (which I suppose we have all heard) is to just throw them into the cooking pot while they are alive. This method has the following drawbacks:

• The crab doesn't want to go in the pot. Imagine trying to put a cat into a cat carrier, except with crab pinchers.
• You need a really big pot.
• This is by far the clincher for me: you're boiling the poor creature alive. They react to this just about like you'd expect.

OK, so that method is out for me. I'd also read about pithing them (think: high school biology; frogs). Supposedly a crab's brain is just aft of the forward edge of the shell and between the eyes. I tried crushing a couple there with pliers - again, I was just torturing the poor things.

Finally, Art showed us the way. Remember we were talking about the "sex plate" on their under sides as a means of determining gender? Well, it turns out that if you turn the crab over and strike a sharp blow on that plate - hard enough to break it - you will kill it instantly. I mean:

Right.
Now.

I use our bronze winch handle to do the deed.

Discarding the parts of the crab that won't be eaten is quick: with one hand, hold the shell, and with the other, put your thumb on that broken plate and weave your fingers in with the 4 legs. Lever the legs up and in, away from the shell. Setting the shell and the other legs aside for a minute, look at what you have in your hand. You will see 4 legs and some grey, curved finger-looking things on them. These are the crab's gills - you should pick them off and throw them back into the water. Give the legs a quick slosh in the water to rinse off anything else, and they are ready. Do the same with the other side, and throw the shell and contents back in the water. (Trust me - the other crabs down there will see this as manna falling from heaven.)

You will need about 1 full set of legs per person. If everybody is starved, then 3 crabs will serve 2 people.

Here's how we cook crab on Eolian:

• In a suitable sized pan, put 1/4" - 1/2" of water (I like to use 50/50 salt/fresh), and put it on the heat. We are not going to boil the crab; we are going to steam it.
• When the water is boiling, sprinkle in some crab boiling spices, add the crab, and put on a lid.
• The crab will be done when the meat at ends of the legs is no longer translucent - maybe 3-5 minutes, depending on the size of the pot, the size of the flame, and how much crab is in there. Another bit of evidence will be steam escaping from the pot - this won't happen until the crab inside is heated; if it were still cool, the steam would be condensing on the crab instead of escaping. Don't over-cook it. For us, well we have pots with glass lids, so it is easy to see when it is done.

Each person should be provided with a plate to work on, or maybe just a clear spot on the dock, and plenty of paper napkins. If you are eating inside, a bowl will be needed to collect the emptied shells. Each person will definitely want a crab cracker to open the shells to get at the meat. The pointy end segments of the legs make excellent, disposable picking tools to get the last bits of meat from the far recesses of the joints. (Here we have put a towel over the pot to keep the crab warm until we get to it. And beer has been substituted for wine - beer works too.)

Separate a leg from your crab half, and first dip the meaty end into your little pot of melted butter. Stick it in your mouth, and use your lips and tongue to separate the meat from the little bony separator plates. When you have gotten all of that meat, put the first joint ( the one that was closest to the body) in between the jaws of the cracker, tall way up. Crack it a couple of places along it's length, and you should be able to pull away half of the shell and get at the meat. Dip it in the butter! Have a sip of wine! (yes, your wine glasses are going to get dirty finger prints all over them. Shelling crab and eating it is not something you do in evening attire.

Eating crab is like eating corn on the cob. Everybody has a system. I work from the small legs to the big one with the claw. That leg is special, since it is the mother lode - there is meat even in the elbow joint - that's why I save it for last.

Crab caught, cooked and eaten like this will have a wonderful rich, sweet flavor, not very much at all like the strong taste of the whole-cooked crab you find in the grocery store (if you live in a coastal area), let alone the canned variety.

Go ahead! What are you waiting for?

Get crackin!

Crabs, Part 3: How to cook and eat them

Crabs, Part 2: How to get 'em

Crabs.  In Part I, we talked about their personalities.  Now this may seem frivilous, but as it turns out, the key to catching crabs is understanding what motivates them.

In a word:  GREED.

They are not wily.  They are not shy.  They are not subtle.  So, to catch them,  you don't need to be any of these things either.   You just cater to their greed.

In Puget Sound, you will see two primary tools in use for catching crab.  The simplest and cheapest is the crab ring.  Now, that is kind of a misnomer, since the crab ring is actually two metal rings, a smaller one and a larger one, linked with netting.  When dropped onto the bottom, it lays flat, but when hoisted up, it forms kind of a net bucket.  It is attached to the line by a three-legged harness which should have a float on it so that when the ring is dropped into the water, it lands right-side up.

How is the ring used, you might ask (if you've read this far)?  It is simplicity itself.  You tie the bait securely to the netting inside the smaller ring, and throw it in the water.  Wait 20-30 minutes (or maybe a little longer for the first pull), and then retrieve it.  Bait?  There are lots of suggestions here, but we have found that a turkey wing or drumstick neatly fits into the intersection of cheap, easily available, easy to attach securely and satisfying crabs' greed.  Now, that's twice I have said it:  Tie the thing on securely, or a crab will haul it off.  They are not weaklings...  you will sometimes find that they have broken the bone in the drumstick.  After a couple of hours, the best of the juices will have been leached from the drumstick, and the crabs will no longer be able to smell it as well in the current.  If you don't have enough for dinner yet, you will probably want to replace the bait.

But, if you don't have enough for dinner after a couple of hours, you should probably try a different spot.  Which brings up the second question:  Where to put the ring?  Eating-sized crabs prefer deeper water - say 30-50 feet.  But that's the ideal.  We like to just crab off the boat while we are at anchor.  In some places (Port Madison, for example), it doesn't pay because the water is so shallow - all you get are babies.  When crabbing off the boat at anchor, be sure to veer enough line so that the boat tacking back and forth on the anchor doesn't drag the ring all over the bottom.  Oh, and Jane says she has better luck on an incoming tide.

The other device in use on Puget Sound is a crab trap.  These are (usually) steel mesh enclosures with little flaps that the crabs can open to get in, but can't open from the inside.  These are set-and-forget devices.  You bait them and put them over the side in a likely place, coming back hours later to retrieve your catch.  Since these are left unattended, there are rules for the kind of float used to mark them on the surface, and the kind of line used to attach the float to the trap.  Knowledgeable crab trappers tie the bait to the inside of the top surface of the trap, or use a bait box.

Whichever device you use, you are eventually going to bring it up, full of crabs.  Now what?

First, you can't keep everything you catch.  There are size limits, and they really do make sense.  Anything smaller than the allowable limit is going to be too small to bother with eating anyway.  Second, for Dungeness crabs anyway (that's what these in the picture are), you cannot keep females.  The overturned crab in the picture is a male - see that triangular-shaped plate on his belly? On a female, this plate is much wider and kind of rounded.  For the other kind of crab commonly caught in Puget Sound, the Red Rock crab, the size limits are different and you can keep either sex.  They are easy to distinguish from the Dungeness, because they are more stretched out side-to-side, and because they are, umm... red.

Whether you are going to keep them or throw them back, you have to get them out of the netting or the trap.  This can be kind of tricky for the uninitiated.  When you reach for a crab, you will quickly see how aggressive they are.  They will rear back and wave their claws at you, trying to clamp on.  The only safe way to grab a crab is from the back - and they know this, so they will try to prevent you from doing it.  If you can turn the crab onto his back, he will shortly and magically go passive - like the one in the picture.  Then they are easy to grab from the back.  If you continue to hold them upside down, they will stay passive, like the two live Rock crabs I am holding in the picture in the part I post.  You must work quickly - they will soon be scrabbling all over the deck, going every which way.

Now, I am going to leave you, holding that crab upside down from the back, until the final installment, where I will take you to that final messy joy of cracking and eating crab.

Don't let him go.

Crabs, Part 2: How to get 'em

Crabs, Part 1: Personality

I really liked Finding Nemo because the characterizations of the various creatures were so apt. Who can forget the seagulls screaming "Mine! Mine!" That so perfectly captures the essence of seagulls!

And the crabs. Remember when Nemo enters the Sydney Harbor, and there are two crabs fighting for tasty morsels as they emerge from the sewage outfall pipe? Well, Pixar captured the personalities of those two guys just as accurately as they did those of the gulls.

Crabs are the junkyard dogs of the ocean floor. They are fast-moving armored tanks in a world of the stationary (clams, mussels, sponges, etc), or at best very the slow moving (starfish, sand dollars). If something should make it past the birds on the surface and the fish floating in between, it will likely be a crab that finds it and defends it on the ocean floor. And I suspect that a big Dungie (Dungeness crab) reared up and holding his heavy claws in attack position would scare off most bottom-feeding fish, if they cruised by.

Crabs are fearless. They will attack anything that threatens them or their food. About the only thing that they seem to fear is a bigger crab. And they are insanely greedy. When we were in Norway, we saw kids catching crabs like this:

• Walk along the shore and find a piece of abandoned fishing line, and a dead fish, or part of a dead fish
• Tie the line to the fish, and drop it in the water off of a dock
• Watch. Crabs will come
• When a crab grabs the fish, pull in the line. The crab is so greedy, he will not release his hold, even when he is hoisted out of the water and put on the dock

Like junkyard dogs, if you throw two crabs into a bucket of water (to keep them alive for later eating), they will square off, facing each other, claws raised and ready to attack. It won't be long before you'll hear a mighty scrabbling, and one of the crabs will have seven legs instead of eight. They are nasty fighters, and they know just how to use those claws to take apart their opposition, literally.

True story:

Jane was untangling a big rock crab from the netting in our crab ring when the wily critter grabbed her finger. In no time, he was working his claw to separate her finger at the joint. Since she had no way to pry open the claw, and there was no help nearby, she started whanging the crab against the concrete dock until he died, and then finally released her (in that order).

At dinner that night, I knew better than to come between Jane and that particular crab. And the swollen finger didn't slow her down at all.

Crabs, Part 1: Personality

Final Thursday

Last Thursday, we rushed off the dock right after I got home from work (delayed, unfortunately, by a blowout on my bicycle tire) - across the Sound to Port Madison. Nevertheless, we barely had the anchor down and dinner started and it was dark. Not "city street" dark, *DARK*. There are no streetlights on the water. This will have to be the final Thursday run to Port Madison this year.

Dinner was fabulous, if a little sad because of this (I always get maudlin at the passing of the summer). Jane picked all the crab we still had in the freezer (it was getting a little old), and I made crab cakes - yum!

Crab Cakes

---

• Pick the meat from 5 or 6 medium rock crabs
• Add two eggs
• Crunch up a half a line of saltines or so and add it
  
• Add a big blob of mayonnaise
• Season with Old Bay or shrimp boil (my favorite), or...
• Mix it all up completely
  

Spoon the mixture into a hot pan with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, shaping it into patties - pat them down until they are perhaps 1/2" thick. Fry until they are golden brown on each side.

Makes 4 6-8" diameter crab cakes

Other things you might consider adding to the mix:

• chopped celery
• chopped bell pepper
• squeeze in a clove or two of garlic
• chopped dill weed

Final Thursday