Dungeness crabs in Drakes Bay

We’re up at Drakes Bay, having arrived (under power) yesterday late afternoon in 0-4 knots of wind from the South. It was super foggy at times, and at other times bright sunny. When we actually got into the bay it was extra thick fog, and we found the big steel USCG mooring ball via radar. Then we motored out for 6 minutes into the bay to get away from the protected animal area (which includes the anchorage), and proceeded to set our crab pot.

The crab pot is a flex-o=fold fullsize pot that folds down into a tiny flat disk about 18″ diameter and 4″ thick, undone it’s a giant crab pot! – very cool. Into the pot went the bait bottle stuffed with a store-bought turkey neck (on sale Thursday afternoon), the dinghy grapple anchor and 3′ of chain tied to the lower pot ring served as the weight, and down it went. I do have 150′ of leaded crabtrap line that is normally used for the anchor ball, and that was used for the float – which says ‘TIGER BEETLE ANCHOR’ on it.

Then we weant back to the mooring ball and anchored via radar half way been the shore and the ball – keeps the boat out of the 10-12 foot swell rolling by just outisde the point (and good crashing breakers on the table rock just outside Chimney Rock).

A bit later a fog horn went ‘beep!’, and out of the fog appeared Dave on Temerity, a friend from Grand Marina. Unexpectedly (to me) he had decided to also go up to Drakes Bay and enjoy the weekend. He rafted up for a bit, then moved a bit sideways and anchored for the night.

And now it’s morning, visibility is fantastic, all the way to San Francisco, even Half Moon Bay hills are visible. Two groups of elephant seals are gargling at each other from their respective beaches, and we went over to find the crab trab. Conveniently we had written down the GPS coordinates, and headed out into the bay (zero wind) in the dingy, Kristen directing by observing the handheld GPS. And there was the pot.

Up it came, loaded to the gills with male Dungeness Crab, 11 in total, all way above minimum shell size. We put back the smallest one, leaving us with 10 – the daily bag limit in these parts. And now they are stacked into the cockpit cooler loaded with salt water (I change out the water every so often) and Kristen is busily preparing the hot water for cooking crabs – she loves to eat them, I enjoy catching them but am not much for eating the crabs.

So it’s a super Saturday in these parts, the day has stayed sunny, got the video camera out for bit, and take some more pictures later on.

Out for now!

- rob

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