If I’d have known catching crabs was so much fun, I’ve have done it years ago.
After we got evicted early from Beverly Beach, we headed south down the coast to Coos Bay. With the Cards making a deep postseason run, and having licked the cable tv setup issue in Portland, I lobbied for a “commercial” campground (non State Park, and thus Cable TV). Kim shut me down. 🙁
Fortunately for me, once we found the State Park, and toured the available spots, there really weren’t any (only one spot long enough for us and it was all the way upfront by the registration). So, Kim (finally) took pity on me and agreed to go to “Oceanside RV Park”, where cable TV was offered. Yay!.
The first afternoon there, I hung out at the RV (some alone time), and Kim took the kids over the beach. Kane came back and announced that “it was the best beach I’ve ever been to!”. I guess the tidepooling was terrific.
The first full day, there Kim had planned to go crabbing (catching crabs). After she talked to a few folks and scoped it out, and she relayed that “it’s been slow”, I pushed pretty hard to skip it and go do a hike or something. I just couldn’t imagine getting a license, renting gear, fumbling our way through learning the technique, spending 3/4 hours, and not getting anything. For the record, though, my heels were not dug in deeply! We compromised and we went crabbing.
The bait shop near the marina was closed, the owner left a note on the door saying “I had to take my kid to the doctor, be back at 12:30”. We need to be crabbing at lowtide… 11:00. I pushed back again, and failed again. Kim ran over to the little place on the dock, and got the scoop. We could rent all the gear there, but we would have to buy a license elsewhere (the Oregon license bureau). We headed over to the bureau. Kim and I had a bit of a mexican standoff. I was trying to get her to go in and get the license (and hence be responsible for doing the crabbing), and she wanted me to do it. We compromised and I went in to get the license.
The ladies at the license bureau were really friendly and helpful (mostly). I got my license, and they took 10 minutes to fill me in on where to go, the regulations, how to id Dungeness, Red Rocks, Male/Femail etc. How to measure them (they gave me a measuring tool). Everything was good, until I asked them to root for the Cardinals that night. One of them was “born in Orange County”, and seemed a little miffed by the request. The license was good 3 days and cost $11.50.
Off to the pier to rent gear. We got the “Crabbing Special”… one “crab ring” (collapsible basket with rope), two “bait bags” (plastic mesh bag for holding bait, two baits (one salmon head, one tuna head), a bucket and a measuring stick. We had borrowed a crab ring (smaller one) from our campground office, so this gave us (in theory), two complete setups. The extra bait and bait bag were 4 bucks, so we were in for $14.
The gals at the license bureau told me not to fish at the dock where the bait shop was… it’s over fished. They told me to go to the other side of the bridge (across the town of Charleston), and find the “T” shaped pier. The super nice guy at the bait shop told me how to get there. So we went there.
When we got there and walked out onto the pier, there were actually 4 docks branching off of the pier. There were boats parked along the outermost docks, and the inner docks were void of boats. It looked like there were people crabbing on each, though not many. We decided to pick the inner dock and avoid the boats altogether. It was a great choice. On this doc, there was one guy with a little girl crabbing. As we walked down, we shouted to him… “do you mind if we join you?”. He said “sure” so we set up just down from them.
Nolan and Cherokee were not first time crabbers, in fact, Nolan grew up in the area, and seemingly has tons of free time. He’s crabbed everywhere in Charleston, and “this spot is the best”. Sounds too good to be true, but great! We had a great time, picking Nolan’s brain, learning the finer points of technique (especially for how to throw out the ring… like a frisbee, then give it a “jerk” after it sinks to make sure it sinks rightside-up), and also how to hold the crabs without getting clawed.
There are varying schools of thought on how often to pull up the rings. We’d heard that the big ones come and go (they don’t hang out on the ring for long periods), so we decided on 10 minutes. We used Kims iphone as our timer, and we were all “Giddy” when we heard the “dog barking” alarm go off on Kim’s phone. Every time we pulled up the rings, we had crabs in the basket! It was soooo fun! Usually, we had 5-10 crabs, some mix of Dungeness and Red Rock, varying sizes. We started out keeping all of the Red Rocks (they are not indigenous to the area, and you can keep any size/sex), and “keeper” dungeoness (5 and 3/4 inches wide across the shell).
We’d pull up the ring, measure any large Dungeness, and throw our loot into a cooler of ice. Later on, we threw the smaller Red Rocks back, and kept our 2 keeper Dungeness, and “larger” Red Rocks.
I apologized to Kim as I was totally wrong about the crabbing. It was fun as heck, and something I’ll remember forever.
Toward the end of the crabbing, Kane (who was careless at times with handling the crabs), had a large Red Rock crab latch onto his pinky! He was screaming, I was trying to put my gloves on, and Kim was shouting at me “help him!”. I was able to get it off after probably 20 seconds, but those suckers are STRONG! It was a good lesson.
One the way home, we stopped at the seafood store and bought some fresh Tuna for a fish fry. We wanted to try to replicate the “Bowpickers” fish-n-chips from Astoria. Then we stopped by the campground office and borrowed their huge stock pot.
That night, boiled the crabs outside over our coleman gas grill, and beer-battered and fried the tuna inside on the stove. All the while watching the Cards game. Ultimately, the crab was too difficult to harvest to be awesome(we understood why “most people don’t bother with Red Rocks”). I don’t eat crab anyway because of a suspected allergy and migraine headaches. The tuna and potatoes were “very good” (not competition for Bowpickers yet). But what a day!
The next day, we debated a few options, and ultimately decided on “sand sledding”. The Sand Dunes recreation area (40 miles of sand dunes) was just 1/2 hour north of us. Kim had read a lot about Dune Buggies, Sand Boarding (like snow boarding), and Sand Sledding. We decided that best value in experiencing the dunes would be to rent or buy a sled.
We found a rental place after some searching, and in a moment of clarity opted to rent one sled for “all day” (20 bucks). I figured, we long pole in the tent would be energy to climb the hill, and I wasn’t sure Kat (nor I) would be up for more than 1 run. The sleds are kind of like wake boards (just a wood board with two handles and a fiberglass bottom layer). The guy who rented it to us, gave us a map/directions to a good place, and said “be generous with the wax”. Put it on, and slide the sled on the sand to make it slick.
We drove out (another 10 miles north) to the park, and it was amazing. There were woods, with a short path to a 5 acre lake, and one entire side of the lake was adjacent to a massive sand hill (150 yards long, and > 45% slope down). On the way over, I explained the ground rules of the sled… nobody climbs the hill without the sled. You wanna sled, you get it up the hill yourself, and don’t leave anyone stranded at the top of the hill without the sled. So of course, when we got there, we all immediately climbed to the top of the hill, and I carried the sled. Oh well, it was a good idea.
When we got to the top of the hill, we were treated to a real view of the sand dunes. Sand hills as far as the eye can see, ending at what looked like the ocean. It was amazing and worth the effort by itself.
The backside of the “big hill to the lake” offered some more modest runs, and we decided to cut our teeth there vs the big one. Kane went first. I waxed the board with the “wax for hot weather”.. evidently 70 is hot here. Kane had a nice run down to the bottom of the slope and fell off. He came back, and it was Kat’s turn. She seems to be a natural (and light), so she went about twice as far down the “less steep” part of the hill. Not to be outdone, on Kane’s next run, he started pushing him self down the less steep area with his hands, and managed to go “over the cliff” at the bottom. He went to an area that I could not see, and had not seen. All I heard was a scream, and he disappeared. I waited about 10 seconds, called to Kane, and didn’t get a reply, so I put my camera down and “ran”. He was OK, and had just shot down into a ditch (it was steep, but not that long). Climbing back up was rough! The sand in some areas is very “slippery”. Take a 2 foot step up the hill, and make 6 inches of progress?
After a few more practice runs, we went to the other side (lake side). Kane had a hard time getting going, and I wasn’t sure if it was all the footprints, or lack of wax. (I was not yet convinced the wax was helping much). So I used the regular wax, and put a full coat on. Kane “flew” down the hill. He got to within 30 feet of the lake and had to “ditch”. He flipped 2/3 times (thankfully the board didn’t hit him), and the board slid (by itself) all the way into the lake!
Kane was OK (lost his sunglasses and face covered in sand), and Kat got the board. Kat brought the board up to the top (what a trooper), and announced that she didn’t want her turn. I gave it a go, and had a similar experience to Kane, though I didn’t ditch at 30 feet out, I wiped at 50 feet out. In hindsight a bad idea because my camera bag ended up getting a bunch of sand in it and my camera had sand on it. Thankfully, I don’t think Kim was videoing, otherwise, my pride might have been damaged more than the camera.
It was a great day. It was also the day our dear friend Stephanie got remarried, and as a result, we were getting texts from friends at the wedding. Kim was feeling really low about not being there, and I was spending a lot of time thinking about my buddy Jeff (Steph’s first husband who died). Jeff would have been our biggest fan on this journey, no doubt proud of us. Jeff also would have shredded that sand boarding hill(probably while yodeling and wearing a sombrero).
