This weekend was an adventurous one for sure, especially in my mundane world. \u00a0Several months ago I was out with some friends, talking about plans for the rest of the year, and a guy mentions “Hey I go on a crabbing trip in November if anybody is interested.” \u00a0I said yeah, I was, but didn’t follow up on it too well in my usual manner. \u00a0So early last week the same guy says “Well, the crab trip is this weekend, are you in?” \u00a0What the heck, yes I am. \u00a0I quickly threw together what I hoped might be enough gear to get me through a three-night camp, and we took off Thursday morning for Bodega Bay. \u00a0There was just four of us Thursday night, so we set up camp and got all the crab pots ready. \u00a0That included setting up the ropes and buoys, cutting up disgusting bait for them, and loading them in the boat. \u00a0I participated as little as possible, especially in the bait cutting. \u00a0Nasty stuff there. \u00a0There was only room for two guys on the boat with all the traps, so me and the other guy who’d never been stayed back while the other two made a run out and dropped them all.<\/p>\n
Friday morning, we got up not-particularly-early and headed out to check the traps. \u00a0I will readily admit some trepidation at the size of the small-ish boat, which we were taking out over a mile off shore. \u00a0That’s a big ol’ ocean out there, and the water was rough. \u00a0I loaded up on Dramamine and those sea-sickness wristbands and hoped for the best. \u00a0My hopes were quickly dashed when we got out to the trap area. \u00a0We couldn’t see any shoreline, just big 10 foot swells going every which way. \u00a0All of a sudden the other newbie was chumming a little extra crab bait over the side, and I was pouring sweat and turning 3 shades of green. \u00a0Not fun. \u00a0I never got sick but I probably would have been better off if I had. \u00a0We stuck it out though, and pulled in our limit of crabs. \u00a0Then the guy driving the boat says, “Hey, you guys mind if we head out a few more miles and \u00a0do a little fishing for a while?” \u00a0Ohhhhhh nooooo. \u00a0I was sort of the odd man out on the trip, so I said, “Hey, yeah whatever, do your thing.” \u00a0My face must have said something else entirely, because he busted out laughing and said “Just jacking with you, we’ll head back.” \u00a0Picking on the new guys, real cool.<\/p>\n
The entire rest of the weekend was spent repeating this process. \u00a0A lot more guys showed up thankfully, so I was spared more boat trips. \u00a0Every trip at least one guy would come back and head straight for his\u00a0tent though. \u00a0I actually felt lucky that I recovered after the ride, some guys were out of commission for entire afternoons. \u00a0As for myself, I stuck to the crap prep and cooking teams, which was a blast. \u00a0Over the weekend we hauled in nearly 200 crabs and cooked them all up. \u00a0The veterans of the trip had been doing this for almost 20 years I guess, so they had a definite system down. \u00a0We ate crab every meal in some fashion, and still had more than plenty to divvy up and take home. \u00a0Good times!<\/p>\n\n\t\t