There’s only way to get your hands on a blue crab: Go out and catch one. (Or dozens, day after day—as our new friends on Tangier Island, VA, explained, when we paddled there in June.) Here’s a little photo essay from our visit to a “crab house” with local waterman, Denny C.
Besides churchgoing, harvesting blue crab shapes life here. On workdays, watermen are up at 3:30 a.m.
The “crab houses” that line the harbor are essentially “shedding pounds” where the molting of the crabs can be monitored (by hand, of course!).
Now we’re really feeling like silly city folk: Denny explains where soft-shell crab comes from (duh, it’s a hard shell crab that’s completely shed its hard shell—claws and all). But act fast! That rubber crab will have a new suit of armor in just a couple of hours.
US Capitol Building? A female. The Washington Monument: Male.
Soft crabs bring the highest prices. Crabbers quickly remove them from the water before a new shell starts to form and pack them in grass and ice for shipping to Crisfield and NYC’s Fulton Fish Market.
Thanks to Ailsa for this week’s travel theme! More photos are here (click for handy slideshow):
2 Geeks @ 3 Knots 