Crab for Dinner

Robert, Friday, June 20

We set out to do errands today. I dropped Leslie off at the laundromat with all of the dirty laundry and I headed into town to pick up a few things. Two important stops were for propane and fresh fish. Got the propane and was told that the fresh fish would be there around 4:30 p.m. Places that have fresh fish buy it right from the boat and process it. The boats arrive late in the afternoon. All of the fish is cleaned, cut up, sealed in plastic, and frozen. You can buy fish as it is headed for the freezer. If you go there in the morning, the best you can do is to buy “fresh frozen” fish from the day before. I went back to get Leslie and after a few more errands, we went back to get the fish. When we got there, they said that they were getting Dungeness crabs momentarily. We could stand on the dock and look down at the boat waiting to unload the crabs. The boat pulled up and the crabs were winched up to the dock. We said we would take two crabs in addition to a pound of fresh salmon. The Dungeness crabs are smaller than the King crabs. King crabs weigh 8-10 pounds and Dungeness crabs weigh 2-3 pounds. When we bought the King crabs we paid $14 per pound and the Dungeness crabs were $6.50 per pound. We had to wait a few minutes for our salmon as they were in the back filleting it. As we waited for our salmon, a line was forming for the crabs. The boat had 84 pounds of crab or about 42 crabs. Someone else waiting said that a few days before the boat brought in about 500 pounds. Before we left, they had sold 12 crabs to the first three people in line including us (we were third in line) and there were 5-6 people there with more arriving. I don’t know how the word got out that the crabs were there but as someone said, “Word travels fast!” With that we went back to the trailer to get some things done and to cook crab for dinner. We put the salmon in the refrigerator for tomorrow. As it was a beautiful evening we set up a table outside to eat our crab. Also, peeling and eating crab is a messy thing and being outside is a good idea. After dinner we cleaned everything, did a few more tasks to get ready for tomorrow, and went to bed.

Sitka Crab

Leslie Friday, June 20, 2008

Today was a day of laundry and errands. We wanted to be sure to get to the fish monger on the dock between 4:30 (when the fishermen start to come in) and 6:00 pm (when they close). Our timing worked out perfectly. We may have mentioned previously that Dungeness crab season opened on June 15th. We hadn’t had any yet. When we got to the dock at 4:30, the operator told us that the crab would be delivered as soon as the boat at the dock left. We decided to stand around and watch.

Soon the crab fisherman pulled up to the dock. The pier is high so they use a pull system to lift the tubs of fish from the boat level to the pier level.

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The crabman had only one tub of crabs.

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Soon a line formed of people waiting for crabs. We were first in line. That was good because after a few sales the woman in charge said that she didn’t think they would have enough crabs to fill everyone’s order.

First the crab were counted and weighed (so the crabman could get paid). There was 82 pounds of crab weighing about 2 pounds each. We bought 2 crabs and another pound of King Salmon filets. We had previously discussed that we needed to get more use out of the giant pot we bought in Ketchikan for to cook the King Crab.

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We were lucky that the sun shone for most of the afternoon so we were able to eat out of doors. We had talked about bringing our old Coleman camp stove to use out-of-doors but ultimately it didn’t make the "purge" of the RV basement. We had to cook in-doors but we do carry a "church" table to use places where no picnic table is provided. Eating crab or corn on the cob is best done out-of-doors. If we travel places where we expect to eat out-of-doors, I think I’ll put the camp stove back on the "critical" list. It would be nice to keep the fish cooking outside the RV. We do have two Fantastic fans that move air out of the RV. I don’t know why they don’t make Fantastic fans for houses, but this ceiling mounted high powered fan completely replaces all the air in the RV in about 10 minutes. We have one Fantastic fan mounted over the kitchen and a second one mounted over the sink in the bathroom. If we turn one Fantastic fan to "in" and the other to "out," it feels a bit like a wind tunnel in here.
Most of us think that mid-summer occurs on June 21st. Due to the position of the earth vis the sun, this year the summer solstice occurred on June 21th at 3:07 pm. The local radio station announced that winter is coming – and of course that is true, every day from now on will be shorter. I took most of these pictures after 10:00 pm.

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Tonight at around 10:00 pm I went out to take pictures of the sunset and the waterline. Enjoy!