Birthday Crab(cake)

Yes, there is much more to come from Safari-land. But it is coming slowly as working with sooooo many photos is a daunting challenge for Marilyn, as she is not accustomed to this here blog thing. So meanwhile, I'll put up a mini bit about our two week stay on the Chesapeake, where we got a chance to celebrate Marilyn's birthday. Those of you who know her well know she eats her much beloved chocolate, sweets and treats ONLY on a Sunday. Way more discipline than I have, so more power to her. While there is only one day a week to eat the specialty items, every day is open season for her most favorite of all food groups- CRAB. And the main thing to do around here, maybe not the only thing, but close to it, is to go crabbing. So we got us a long handle net, a couple of hand lines, some chicken necks (bait!) and a bucket to put what we catch in until we get around to cooking it and eating it. And in truth we did catch a lot of crabs- blue crabs. But there is a size limit on crabs here, and we couldn't seem to catch any that "fit" the crab gauge which had to have to check whether the crabs are "legal" or not. In two full days of crabbing, we only caught one that measured up. Disappointing, yes, but still a lot of fun and we met a bunch of nice people hanging out on the dock. What do they say? A bad day crabbing is better than a good day at work? Or something like that!

So as it became evident we were not about to catch our own birthday feast, we decided to drive in to West Point where there is a fresh crab dealer and we met the boat coming in. Blue crabs are sorted by size and sex. Males in one basket, females in another. Then the male crabs, called jimmies, are sorted by size, numbers 1, 2 and 3, with size 1 being the largest. Price wise, #1 crabs were twice as much as #2 crabs, but after looking them over we went with the largest of the lot and selected a half bushel of #1 jimmies to take home for "Crabaganza." For one thing it is easier to clean the larger crabs. And once we finished eating our fill, and picking out the rest of the crabs- of which there were many- we wound up with two and a half pounds of picked out lump crab meat- which sells in the market for way more than we paid for the half bushel. So not only did we have an all you can eat crab feast- we came out ahead (well, sort of).

If you would care to see how to tell the crabs one from the other, CLICK HERE for a really good identification chart.

On our walks around the area we took some interesting photos and same is true when we went driving around the bay area to see what there was to see. Following is a still or two and then a slide show from our stay here. Have to put this place of the "Definitely Would Come Back" list.




Now let's all sing the second verse of the birthday song: "How old are you now, how old are you now....."