Pacific Heights Crab Shack

I have been craving crab for the last three months.  Crab dipped in warm garlic butter....yum...  The last time we had crab was four years ago, fresh off the dock in Tofino, BC.  We cooked it up in our beachside cabin.  It was divine.  So you can see, not just any crab would do.

Then recently a new friend/neighbour had been posting on Facebook about the fish and crab her husband had been catching locally.  I remembered back to last summer when we saw guys plucking crab out of the ocean at Centennial Beach - maybe it was possible for us to do it too.  Serendipity brought it all together when the local homeschooling community posted about the lowest tides of the year happening Sunday at 2pm.  Perfect.

I bought an ocean fishing license online and read all the rules of crabbing.  We were only allowed to bring home 4 crab per license.  They had to be male and over 6.5 inches wide across the back shell.  My friend's husband told us all about baiting crab traps and nets and stuff, but we are ghetto fishermen so we brought BBQ tongs and a bucket.

We hit the somewhat rainy beach today with our 'gear' and a few friends who wanted to witness the craziness we had got ourselves into.  There was a big hike out to the ocean.  The tide had gone out REALLY far.  Once we hit the ocean we saw a few other guys with nets so we knew we were on the right track.  We went in up to our knees and wandered the shoreline.  It didn't take long until we found our first one.

Sadly, he was only 6 inches across and he had to go back. 

Our second one was huge!  The biggest one of the day.  He sure was feisty.  We had to watch Annie's nose.  She really wanted to protect us from the scary beast.

We started a crab fight.

It was great fun.  We caught three.  A kind fellow fisherman who had reached his limit gave us two - one of which was a tad too small, but we were only allowed to take four anyway.

photo care of Angela D'Eon 2013

We were just blown away at how easy it was.  No special gear was needed.  You can see our bucket and tongs above.  Yes, a net would have been nice, but we did great without it.  We caught our own dinner!  Can you believe it?  I am still in shock.  Pluck some crabs out of the ocean.  Done.

Here is our final catch...

And then it was time for cooking...

And fifteen minutes later....done!

I think the hardest part is taking out all the sweet meat.  Luckily I have a husband that doesn't mind getting his hands dirty.

This is what two crabs worth of meat looks like.

Sorry there aren't any more photos of food.  We dipped it in garlic butter and ate it.  The end.

But we couldn't eat it all.  And there is two more crabs left!  Tomorrow there will be crab cakes and the day after that there will be grilled cheese sandwiches with crab.  Oh my.  Yes.