9/14/10

This update is being written while Elaine drives us in the car to the Portland airport. Her lifelong friend, Elaine Lewter, is flying in from Michigan for a week with us and we are picking her up in about an hour. Hopefully, she will get in on some more of the fun social times and great crabbing that we have been experiencing since we arrived at Winchester Bay.
Yes, the crabbing is still good and even though we took three days off over the weekend, we were amazed yesterday when we totaled up what we had caught so far – 199!!! It was a very good thing that we had between 8 and 10 friends nearby to help with some of the work and also help eat this many crabs! Here is a picture of some of the catch right after we cooked them:
The friends have also been preparing a joint dinner for everyone every night, which has helped us a lot. Plus the food has been delicious and the company outstanding. Here is a picture of Mike & Marilyn with the dinner they cooked for everyone:
Carole & Dick have been really great about having everyone into their RV because it has been mostly too windy or cool at dinner time to eat outside. Here is a picture of them on the one day it was sunny enough to be outside:
And here is part of the group eating in their RV:
Kit and Nancy Carter arrived also, and spent about 5 days with us, and everyone was delighted to have them. Kit jumped right in and learned everything he could about crabbing and processing them, and was a huge help. Here is a picture of Kit, Mike & Lee sitting outside picking crab:
Nancy, of course, was a big help with the other chores. And they taught us a new way to prepare oysters, one that even I liked a lot. They took the oysters in the shells and spread them out on the BBQ (on a piece of foil because the sea water drippings will wreck your BBQ otherwise) and heated them enough that the shells started to open. Then Kit pried off the top shell and as they continued to cook Nancy spooned garlic and butter on them. When they were nearly done, she grated Parmesan cheese on the top. Try this at home because these were awesome! Here is a picture of them cooking:
And here is a picture of them together:
And here is a picture of the people who were coordinating everything and teaching everyone how to do the crabbing experience in style:
Jack and Karen Vincent, RoVing Rod members we already knew, arrived early and are parked near us. They joined us for Happy Hour on the sunny day we could sit outside:
Lee & Susie got a new car and here they are, showing it off:
Saturday they took us for a nice drive in it to lots of the inlets and state parks south of Charleston and we had a delightful day. It was sunny and we saw lots of great scenery as well as some sea lions, seals, and even a couple of whales which had come in very near the shore. Here are a few pictures from our day:



Yesterday we started crabbing again and although we didn't get our pots out until nearly 11 AM, by evening we had caught 24. And the exciting part is that one of them had tag #26 on it. Every year they have a month long contest and if you get a numbered tag on a crab, you get entered into a drawing for $1000, plus various other prizes. The drawing is on Oct. 1.
The bad thing that happened is that my new computer is infected with something. I am typing this on our new netbook which we bought for our upcoming trip to India. Hopefully, Padraic, the computer genius of the RoVing Rods and Boomers will be arriving soon to help me out.
Mike and Marilyn will be leaving Thursday, Lee & Susie on Friday. Come the weekend, Mary & Rich Baumann will arrive and probably some other friends. This flux is all part of the RV lifestyle, and we love it.