Thursday March 10: Crabbing

The wind continues to blow and stir up the water so we still have not been able to go to any of the three reefs nearby to try diving again. A road trip to Mangrove Mike's for breakfast was in order the other day as Ty and Bonnie left us the keys to their car as they were going out on the bay side (not much there but protected from the wind) for a couple of nights. It seems every restaurant has T-shirts for sale so we finally were able to send the one we bought for Tom. It's from Marathon but Mangrove Mike's had some fun ones as well. Hope you like the shirt, Tom!!

Steve bought a crab trap yesterday but found out it really wasn't what he needed to catch the stone crabs that frequent this area. As luck would have it, Tim and Beth (on the catamaran from Ohio) had left for Key West and needed someone to attend to his 3 traps! Of course, Steve volunteered to do this. So into the water went the dinghy - we use the boom to lower the engine down and then Steve goes into the dinghy to guide it the rest of the way down. I snapped a picture of the boat at the dock on the way out.

We were totally clueless :-) First the top of the new cooler buckled when Steve sat on it (he always used the old one for a seat - worked well - guess the new one was cheap for a reason even though we thought it was exactly the same as the old one). Second it was very windy and by the time we were done, both of us were soaked from water spraying over the bow of the dinghy. Third I should have been driving the dingy instead of Steve because the crab pots were HEAVY (cement in the bottom I think). Fourth the crab pot markers were not very well identified as being Tim's. We were just hoping that we weren't crab poaching and finally - by the time we pulled a pot, got the claw (you take only the larger of the two claws as these crabs will grow another one but still need at least one claw to defend itself and get food) the boat had drifted way away from the original spot so we had to again fight the wind/waves and place it at least somewhat close to where we thought we picked it up. We'll do better next time!

What? We were supposed to put more food in the traps? Ok - so another trip out today but this time Dan, Ty and Steve went. Off with cans of cat food with small holes punched in the top of the can. Should be interesting to see what we pull up in a couple of days ......

Tonight though: stone crab claw appetizers :-) No wonder these things are so expensive at the store - it's job 3,268 that I DON'T want! You could easily lose a finger to these things!

Meanwhile, wallpapering is coming along well. These are a couple of the pictures of the project: the desk area. When we're finished with the aft cabin, I'll put the before and after pics on picasaweb!