Cascajun

[Resurrected from the old www.arabie.org archive]

I’ve finally got the boat I’ve dreamed of for over a year. It’s a Sea Ranger by Wayland Marine. It’s a rowing shell made of composite materials and outfitted with a sliding seat rowing rig.

I plan to take it on some extended trips next summer. In between extended trips, I hope to use the boat at least weekly for fitness. It will also be a decent craft for fishing and crabbing.

It was apparent to me, after my first time with it on the water, that I would really benefit from some instruction. Ron Mueller, the owner of Wayland Marine, got me in touch with Dale McKinnon. After a couple of coaching sessions with her, I feel like I’ve really got the hang of sculling. In addition to rowing it out on Lake Padden, I’ve taken the boat for an overnight camping trip at Baker Lake and crabbing out in Bellingham Bay.

Typical of July and August in northwest Washington, we’ve had a few weeks of spectacular weather. Here’s a shot of Mount Baker I took on August 6th.

Camping with boat is going to be a real pleasure. It has a 500-pound load capacity. One drawback is the lack of tie-downs. There are none. I’ll have to find some sort of after market gear tie-down kit like they make for composite hulled whitewater canoes.

Even without the tie-downs, I had no trouble hauling all the gear for two people approximately 1-mile across Baker Lake. We couldn’t find any campsites on the west shore of Baker Lake, so we launched from the Shannon Creek Campground boat ramp and crossed to the east shore and camped near the Noisey Creek Campground. I first had to shuttling myself, an adult passenger, and my two dogs. Then, I went back for all the gear.

The first ferry accross the lake was a little stressfull. My dogs haven’t done much boating. My brother-in-law Rob was camping with me. He sat in the stern with the smaller (~35 lbs) dog, Fiona. I loaded Cayenne, the larger (~65 lbs) dog, in the bow. However, Cayenne would jump out of the boat before I could get myself seated on the sliding seat. Three failed attempts later, I just shoved off and told Cayenne he would have to swim. And he did. Labs are water dogs, right?

There was a nice wind whipped chop out in the center of the lake, as it had about 3-miles of open water in the windward direction to build. The boat performed well and Cayenne paddled along, but was getting fatigued. We allowed him to pull along side and he even got his front paws up on the gunnel. He changed his mind, riding in the boat was a better idea!

Unfortunately, there was no way we were going to wrestle a 65-pound dog into that boat while out in open water. Rob clipped the leash onto Cayenne’s collar and we set out again. He was slower now, and I ended up pulling him along. He made it across fine, and was quite happy to ride in the boat on our return trip the following day.

A friend of mine, John, has a small rowing dory. We got together on August 13th, for an afternoon of crabbing and rowing. We launched at Fairhaven Boatworks, rowed out into the bay, and dropped our crab pots in about 60-feet of water.

After dropping the crab pots we rowed out to Bouy #2, a navigational bouy about a half-mile off shore from Marine Park. After rounding the bouy, we headed back to shore and landed at a nice beach. We took a break on the beach, had a beer, and then returned to the crab pots.

The crabs were running. We had four keepers in the pots on our first round. We emptied the pots, tossed back the females and undersized males, and set them out again. We returned about an hour later and had four more keepers. A very successful day!

I grew up eating Blue crabs caught in the estuaries of Louisiana. I’ve always heard Blue crabs were the best because it is so flavorful. I’m beginning to believe that Dungeness crab has Blue crab beat because of the quantity of meat you can get from each crab. I also find the flavor of Dungeness crab just as good as Blue crab.

Last night I made a meal out of 1.5 crabs. There’s something to be said about pulling a hunk of pure white crab meat the size of your thumb out of one those babies! Today I’m going to take the 2.5 crabs I have left and make crab cakes. Mmmmm, Mmmmm good.

UPDATE: The 2.5 leftover crabs yielded 1 lb. 6.25 oz. of meat (lump and claw). Wow!