I got up very, very early this morning to go crabbing with Amanda’s uncle Bruce. (I find this very amusing, given that a particular movie character’s name is also Bruce.) So we set off in Bruce’s “ute” (basically a Nissan 4×4 quad-cab truck, similar to the Nissan Titan but slightly smaller and with 4 doors) up north to some deserted beach which has an insanely small slope to it – when the tide goes out, you can walk for nearly a kilometer.
Unfortunately, at 8am the tide was just starting to go out, which was not good since we were here to rake crabs from the sand. Bruce didn’t like the look of things at the first beach, so we set off into the bush along some very bumpy trails to find a better beach – or maybe just to kill some time while the tide went out. Either way, it was fun – as you know, I love off-roading!
After a while we came to a secluded part of the beach (not that the previous beach had been busy – in fact there was no one at either beach) and went out. The tide was still too far in to get to the crabs, but we were determined, so we waded out into the sea. Because of the low slope, we were able to walk for quite a distance before the water came up to our shorts, and quite a distance beyond even that as it ever so slowly rose higher. Eventually we reached a spot where we didn’t want to go much further – if you’re a man whose ever waded into cold water in the morning, you’ll know why; for the rest of you, just use your imagination.
We did end up finding some crab – zipping along the sand about at about the spot where the water went past my knees. They’re crazy little things that put up their claws when you come near (to try to scare you off, I guess), and I had been advised to wear old sneakers into the water, lest I end up with pinched toes. I like my toes, so I did wear sneakers – which makes it a bit hard to walk, but I was glad I did. Those little buggers are quite aggressive!
Unfortunately, they were all too small to capture (legally). So we ended up not geting any crab to take home & eat (which is a shame; Amanda was going to make fresh crab cakes!). But I still got to see the crabs, which was cool, and do some off-roading, which was also cool. All-in-all, a pretty good day!
