July 10, 2005

The locals are ecstatic.  Both Memorial Day and Independence Day were sunny and bright weekends.  The local Fourth of July celebration was awesome! Since the Fourth was on a Monday, I expected a little restraint with most of the people by having their fireworks on Sunday night so that they "could be home early" and prepared for "work" on Tuesday.  Didn't happen that way.

It is pretty obvious that there is no problem obtaining fireworks here: any kind and in any amount.  There is a group of "twenty somethings" renting the house on the lagoon behind us - a hard partying group.  They were blowing off strings of fairly powerful firecrackers the entire week before the Fourth and at all hours of the night.  (What joy there can be at blowing off firecrackers at one o'clock in the morning is beyond me.)  The attitude here is irritation but nobody thought to call the cops or to approach the miscreants.

Sunday night there were several modest displays of fireworks at various communities around the bay (Port Susan).  But after seeing what went off Monday night - Sunday was nothing.  During the day on July 4th there was a steady din of firecrackers up and down the beach.  Mostly the noise was from kids, but some of the kids were second and third generation.

It doesn't get dark until about 9:30 PM and we bundled up and sat on the beach to watch the fireworks.  Wow!  World War III broke out.  It's hard to describe the tonnage of fireworks that was thrown into the air.  Around the entire bay plumes of fireworks in all colors, patterns and sizes where sent skyward.  There were obvious "hot spots".  Three doors to the north of us, Gary said that his kids had spent more than three thousand dollars on fireworks.  Their display was impressive, but two sites across the bay to the northeast put up displays that would rival most municipal displays.  Gary said that the rumor was that a local car dealer spent over $10K on one the displays across the bay.

The displays continued until about eleven o?clock and then everything started to wind down.  About 11:20, however, there was a massive boom that shook the foundation of the house.  I learned the next day that somebody north of us, not Gary, fired off a cannon.  I have no idea how big, but it was loud.  The cannon "going off" crossed the line and the police were called.  Haven't heard if anything came of that.

Tuesday morning we woke to what looked like another nice day, but by mid-afternoon the wind was blowing and driving the rain.  The television pundits were forecasting that summer was over and all we could expect from now on was wet cloudy weather.  I?m sure they were joking, but so far they?ve been right.

Wednesday crab season opened again.  Crabbing is allowed Wednesday thru Saturdays until Labor Day.  I had planned to put the crab pots out before low tide, but by the time I got everything ready the tide was right at the edge of the mud.  I figured - what the heck - and launched anyway.  By the time I got back to the beach there was twenty feet of flat mud beach between where the boat stopped and the firm rocky beach.  So, I stepped out of the boat into knee-deep mud.  The painter (rope on the pointy end of the boat) was too short to reach dry land, so I tried to pull the boat after me.  Both shoes came off.  By the time I reached the shore, I was a muddy, ucky mess and had to wash everything.  Next time I'll pay more attention to the low tide time.

Late that afternoon, I went out (new clothes) and retrieved the pots.  There were two crabs in each pot.  Three were too small and got thrown back but the one was a nice size (about 7.5" across the back).  I emptied the traps, but the bait was still good,

so I dropped the pots back on station and left them overnight.

Didn't get back to collect the pots until late Thursday afternoon.  The first trap had six crabs in it.  Three of the crabs were big enough to eat so I threw the rest back.  It was then I discovered that those little buggers could fight back.  The biggest of the three had only one pincher, but obviously had gained some dexterity with his remaining claw and nipped me as I pulled him from the pot.  He caught the middle finger and the ring finger of my right hand.  The crab didn't latch on which I hear is extremely painful, but maybe two fingers is too wide to get a good grip.

I hurt a little but wasn?t too bothered until I realized that the crabs being lifted out of the trap had blood on them ? MY BLOOD!.  I didn?t know that a finger cut could bleed so heavily.  There weren?t many choices at that point, so I rinsed off my hand in the seawater and went ahead and pulled the second pot.  The second pot was a real bonanza.  It had nine crabs.  I didn?t even try to sort out the second trap.  I just pulled it into the boat and headed for shore.  Nancy met me at the beach and we sorted out the second trap together.  Sorting the second trap was a real problem.  The daily limit is five crabs and we already had three.  The second trap had only two females (threw them back) and from then on it was a beauty contest.  We kept the five best and threw the rest back. By then the finger had stopped bleeding and was fine.

Randy (Jerry's brother) and Linda had been invited for Sunday and we wanted to have crab.  We had five crabs in the fridge (actually we had four - we ate one) and that was a little shy for four people.  So Friday night I set the traps again for harvest on Saturday.  Friday night all the weekenders showed up and by sunset the bay looked like opening day - buoys everywhere.  Harvested Saturday afternoon and between the two traps we had about fifteen crabs.  Another beauty contest and we kept five.  The only thing unusual was one of the bigger crabs was female.  Usually the females are smaller than the males.  Nancy is getting pretty good cooking and cleaning crabs.

Thursday we golfed with the neighbor.  In retrospect, we?re not golfing as much as we had expected and our golf scores are showing and punishing us.  My golf marshal's job got rained out on Friday afternoon.  We drove by about two o?clock and there were only two cars in the parking lot and they were probably staff.

Saturday we went to Mt. Vernon to see the Highland Games (Scottish Heritage Games).  They had two venues and the dancing competition was at the other one from where we went.  But, we enjoyed the bagpipes, the dog trials, the vendor booths, the he-man trials (caper toss, etc.) and the food booths.  Split a steak and mushroom pie ? very tasty. The local SCA (Society of Creative Anachronisms) had a display and demoded some medieval combat.  The highlight of the show was dog relay races - amazing.

Randy and Linda got here about noon on Sunday.  The sun had been out all morning and the mountains in view.  By noon the sky was falling.  The cloud level had dropped to a couple of thousand feet, the mountains were veiled and there was a threat of rain.  We had a delightful visit and the weather didn't matter.

About dinnertime friends of Randy and Linda, who live here on the Island, joined us for a crab feed and we had a great time.

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