Impromptu Crabs

Being on holiday makes me forget which day it is. It's only really important if I need to visit the post office and it's a Sunday, but even then it isn't REALLY important. One day last week, I'm not sure which, we camped on the beach at a place called Herald Bight, north-east of Denham. People often refer to this area as Shark Bay as it is within the Shark Bay Heritage Area. It's a beautiful part of Western Australia, and if there's any opportunity for a simple camp on the beach, I'm there.

I was just making a start on dinner, and hubby and the girls were combing the beach when they noticed a lot of crabs in the shallows. We aren't carrying any crab scoops with us, but hubby thought he'd try his luck with a pair of leather gloves. I laughed, thinking there was no way he could catch adult Blue Swimmer Crabs with his hands, but no more than 5 minutes and 10 crabs later, he was the one having the last laugh. Well we all were actually, I stopped what I was making and threw a salad together. We were having crabs!

Just in case that wasn't enough of a surprise, a film crew from 4WD Touring who happened to be camping up the beach from us saw the crab-catching and came over for a chat. They interviewed hubby about the trip and the trailer, and then took some footage of him catching the crabs with his (almost) bare hands, with Chicky on his back in the ERGO (a child carrier). It was all a bit surreal.

We boiled some salted water in a big pot, put the crabs in and let the water boil again, then pulled them out after 3 minutes on the boil. They were amazing. There really is nothing like freshly caught seafood.