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Sunday, January 29, 2017

November 21, 2016 – Let's Break for Turkey

After five weeks on the road, a very wet rainy road, we were happy to get to dry desert weather in Reno. We were glad we got over the mountains to Reno without a major storm. I thought we had made it without driving through any snow, but when I woke up from a nap (I nap a lot while Denis drives) Denis informed me he had got us over the pass through a snow storm. Thank God I was asleep, I would have been freaking out.

It took us 2 days to clean and dry out Scoop and then winterize her for her rest while we flew to Maui for a week in our timeshare. We were ready for some warm sun. We were also thankful for the great turkey dinner we shared with Denis’ folks before we left.

November 20, 2016 – And Then There Were Two


With heavy hearts we dropped the girls off at Seatac for their trip home and hit the road back to Reno. We made it as far as Grants Pass, Oregon and then found a spot in an RV park right on the shore of the Rogue River. It was an idyllic spot and we wanted to stay a week. It was the last night of our five-week trip to the northcoast that was suppose to afford Denis some great salmon catching. If only we had come here where the neighbors had tons of stories about how good the fishing had been. All Denis could say was, “damn!”

November 19, 2016 – Tree of Life


On our drive down to Ocean Shores for clamming we took a detour to Kalaloch Beach in Olympic National Park to see the tree touted to be the inspiration for the artist that popularized the Tree of Life artwork and jewelry.  It was a very inspiring sight to see.

November 18, 2016 – From Clamming to Crabbing

We all woke up on a high from our success the night before. We were ready to tackle crabbing during the day and then clamming on the nighttime high tide. The weather woke up too with a cold misty breeze blowing in from the Pacific with clouds threatening to bring more than mist. Research rewarded us with a little motel on the bay that rented crab pots complete with bait to drop from their docks. But we had a secret weapon – we supplemented our bait sacks with the entrails from the clam catch.

“Yum” said the crabs!

We huddled up on the leeward side of a docked boat, dropped our two crab pots and waited the 15 minutes instructed by another Youtube video and boom, crabs in the pots. Some were too small so we had to throw them back, but in a little over an hour we were frozen and happy with our five keepers. There were another couple groups of hardy crabbers that stood in awe of our catch as they had been at it much longer than us, but were only getting little crabs. We got the BIG ones baby!
 


We got home in time to don additional clothes for the evening clamming and load on the rain gear because the storm was on shore. Since our only experience with clamming resulted in a quick limit we figured the same would happen again, but our luck had run out. With a steady rain pounding on the sand it was impossible to see the tell tale burp hole a digging clam leaves.  So I’m not sure if that is what saved the clams or they wised up to all the people digging the previous night, but they were winning this night. We came home with only an additional 5 clams.


We ate really well that night, steamed crab and sautéed clam linguini with enough clams in the freezer to see us through at least another five meals.

November 17, 2016 – Can You Dig Faster Than a Clam?

Since hitting the Oregon and Washington coasts Denis wanted to go clamming, specifically for Razor clams, but the beaches were closed to clamming due to a toxin outbreak in 2015. The departments of fish and game were testing almost daily because the toxins were almost gone and people were chomping at the bit to go get the clams. FINALLY, on Tuesday, November 15th they announced a stretch of beach by Ocean Shores, WA would open for clamming on November 17 for 4 days. We were all excited about this, changed our whole plan for Olympic National Park and drove straight to Ocean Shores finding about the last RV camping spot because everyone was converging on the clams.

We geared up with mucking boots, headlamps (you can only clam on the evening low tide), buckets, nets and clamming guns. We got there for the first night of clamming, ahead of most of the crowd. In Washington you can drive out on the beaches and with the super low tide there was lots of beach to park on. Not being familiar with the beach, much less in the dark, we played sheep and followed the rest of the cars and parked with them. The clamming area was about a football field length away from where the cars were parking. Once we got to the clamming area and looked back where we thought our car was, you could see nothing as it was a pitch-black starless and moonless night. Our salvation was that the seasoned clammers put flashing lights on their dash to serve as a beacon. We shamelessly used their beacon.

The girls and Denis all got clamming permits. I served as hunter, spotter and bucket brigade. Each clammer could harvest 15 clams. For harvesting we chose to use clamming guns. These “guns” are made of glued together pieces of PVC piping. The tube that gets pushed into the sand is a length of 4” dia. PVC pipe. The business end that goes into the sand is open, while the human end is capped and a “T” handle is attached to the cap to twist and push the tube into the sand. The cap has one ¼” hole drilled through it to let air out when pushed into the sand. To get the sand to stay in the tube as it is pulled out, you seal the hole with your finger. When the gun is free of the beach you take your finger off the hole and the sand falls out, and hopefully a clam. This Pinterest-worthy contraption is highly effective at sand sucking and allows the clammer to dig down faster than the razor clam. Next we all sat around the laptop and watched Youtube how-to videos on clamming.

We’re not sure if it was dumb luck, dumb clams or a Pinterest invention that really works, but our team had their limit of clams in under two hours. We found our truck and headed back to strut up to the fish cleaning station in the campground to clean our catch.


 

Thursday, January 26, 2017

November 16, 2016 – Just let Someone Catch a Fish


Laine and Angel do love to fish. They were very successful while they lived in Juneau where they reeled in some nice salmon and halibut. While Denis still hadn’t gotten a fish, his focused changed to trying to provide good fishing for the girls. This took us to the northwest corner of Olympic National Park and the Sol Duc River. We found a spot occupied by several locals who were the nicest people and all joined in trying to get the girls a fish. It took a village and both girls landed huge salmon that were released to continue their quest to spawn.

November 14, 2016 – And Then There Were Four

As luck would have it, Laine and Angel went to Juneau for a Hockey tournament and finished about the same time we hit Washington. They had to change planes in Seattle anyway so decided to hop off and RV with us for a week around the Olympic Peninsula. Scoop has a set of bunks in the back that we use for our closet when just the two of us. We happily gave up our closet for the girls to bunk up. We found an RV park on Bainbridge Island, as close to Seattle as possible to fetch the girls from Seatac without having to drive Scoop into the city. We had to take a ferry over to the city in Molly, but it was easy. Ferries are fun. We all took the ferry back into Seattle the next day for a walkabout around Pikes Place.