Sunday, June 25, 2006

Jim & Nancy's Visit: May '06 - Part 2

Shrimping

We joined Tom & Jacque on the first day of shrimping season. You can only shrimp for 4 hours a day on four days in June, 9 am to 1 pm. 2 Saturdays and 2 Wednesdays.


The canal is starting to fill with boats of all sizes...with many more to come.



After 4 hours of lowering and later hauling up shrimp baskets (traps), Tom brought the day's catch up to their house. Almost made their limit (80 shrimp/licensed person. We had 3 licenses).

(... Jacque and I supervised from our kayaks.)



Cleaning the catch: Lydia (6) & Josiah (2) look on as Tom tears off the heads of the shrimp.


Josiah thinks "This looks easy"...rip...plunk, plunk. After watching for a minute or two he had reached in, grabbed a critter, tore off the head, dropped it in one bucket and the tail in another...like he had been this doing for years.

"Look, Lydia, its easy, you just do it like this..." much to Tom's entertainment.

Wasn't long and Lydia joined in, but no one cleaned with the enthusiasm of 2-year old, Josiah, master shrimp cleaner.

When they were finished he reached all the way down to the bottom of the bucket (used his entire arm) and looked up at us like...

"OK, there aren't any more. We are done!"

That evening back at their home in Sequim, we enjoyed the most delicious fresh shrimp we have ever tasted....I guess it was the FIRST fresh shrimp we had ever tasted. Fantastic! Worth all the trouble. The bar-B-Q chicken, corn on the cob, homemade potato salad, and strawberry shortcake were fabulous, but nothing beat the shrimp.

No doubt Josiah is welcome back next year for shrimping season....

We just hope we are, too.

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