I took the boys to Bandon Oregon to do some crabbing, clamming, surf fishing and ATV-ing on the dunes. The girls went to San Francisco to see Matilda. It was Emma’s belated birthday present and she said it was her best present ever. They had a great meal at Jardiniere, stayed at the Hyatt Regency, shopped at the Ferry Building and got ice cream at the Bi Rite Creamery. She loved it all!
We had a fantastic time too in Bandon. We arrived late Weds evening and the boys were begging me to let them set traps for crab that night. We did. 5:30 am came way too early but the boys were up and ready to go crabbing! We had 2 legals in the trap and crabbed another couple hours for 1 more legal. We needed to be in Charleston at 10am to dig clams so we decided to leave our legal crabs in the crab pot and just leave it in the water tied to the dock. We had great clamming in Charleston and ended up with 21 gapers and a hand full of cockles. We broke the shell on the first 6 or 7 gapers while trying to dig them out of the sand so we used them for crab bait later that day. The crabs LOVED the clams.
When we got back to the crabbing dock in the afternoon, we noticed that someone had taken our trap. That was NOT cool. That was a brand new trap I just bought days ago. Well live and learn. We rented 3 ring/hoop traps and ended the day with only 2 keepers. Tony’s Crab Shack cooked and clean the crabs for .75/each! What a deal! Crab snack in the hotel room right before bedtime!
Next morning we crabbed again but did not get any legals. We headed to the dunes at 9am and spent a few hours riding quads there. The boys enjoyed that a lot.
We finished the day crabbing again on the dock in Bandon and this time we were able to get 5 legals. Another great meal in the hotel room that night!
A friend of a friend happened to be in Bandon the same time we were there and they graciously invited us to crab with them out of their boat in the mouth of the bay on our last morning there. Brian and Melissa are from the Chico area too and they spend a week there every year. They are good friends with Mike Lim and Sue. It was a great pleasure to spend the morning with Brian in his boat crabbing. In 2 hours we boated 20 legal crabs! Next year the boys want me to bring our boat so that is a good possibility.
Looks like we will make this trip next year. We ate well and had such a fun time.
