Father/Son Retreat

We really enjoyed the time at Camp Mardela again. Plenty of Rook was played, crabs eaten, late night chats, challenging emphasis on the topic "What makes a Godly man?". Many thanks to Steve and Willis for all the effort and time they put into the planning. The big crab effort went over quite well even if there was a delay on getting them steamed. I think there were 5 boats out and we totalled 9.5 bushels!
Thanks also to Bro. Bill and Richard for sharing their hearts freely with us. It was very meaningful. Here are a few pics of the highlights:


Crab steamers getting fired up!


Richard expounding some of his wisdom...


Expounding cont....


Don't look so bored Freeman!


C'mon Vern, aren't you done yet!?


Table after table of shells. We had about a bushel left over
but they soon got finished off the next day or so.


The bleachers at the "fathers against sons" ball game.
PS. The dads won by 2 points I think.


What was so funny?

Yes, crabbing again!

Went crabbing today again and got another 2 bushels! As a matter of fact, several fellows from church took their boats and went. This was a coordinated effort to provide enough crabs to take to our father-son retreat near Denton MD. I would estimate that there will be a total of 8-9 bushels of crabs there at the campground! I wonder if we can consume them all. I doubt it! We do plan to have a hotdog roast to go along with the crabs. We look forward to a nice weekend with "the guys".
Rob

Tutorial on Crab Consumption.

Here is the much anticipated post that all Roblog constituents have been waiting for. The promised "Crab Consumption Post"! It all starts with a successful crabbing trip. In other words, you have to catch crabs to consume them. I am going to try to use Picasa2 to highlight the trip and to do the tutorial on eating the crabs. I realized a little too late that I should have posted from last to first to get them in the right order but I didn't feel like redoing it. I would suggest you scroll down and start from the bottom up. I will do better next time.
My apologies to those of you still struggling along on slow old dial-up. I hope this big batch of pictures doesn't take too long for you to be able to view them all.
Rob

We used sheet paper on the tables before we started. It makes it easy to roll up the shells and put in trash bags. 

What a pile of shells! 

Meat revealed. Now get the meat out with your fingers and enjoy! 

Cut down through both halves as shown to reveal the main meat in the crab. 

Halves are separated. 

Cut through the center as shown to separate the halves of the main body. 

Clean off all the gray feathery things. Don't eat those. 

Top shell separated. 

Open the main body of the crab by lifting the tab and separating the top shell from the body. 

The meat from the claw is shown here. 

Take a knife and put a notch in the claw as shown. Then break the claw open with both hands.  

Take the rest of the feelers/legs off. 

We usually start with the claws. 

This shows the underside of the crab. 

Now for the consumption tutorial!  

Ready to head for the table! We use a cooler to keep them hot. 

The steamer is big enough to do a whole bushel at a time.  

Back home putting live crabs into the steamer! 

We went joy riding after getting our limit of 2 bushels. Found this lighthouse at the entrance to the Wye River. 

I am using the net to dip the crabs from the trot line. Brendon is driving and Andrew will use the metal tongs to pick up the crabs as I bring them in the boat. We took turns at different jobs. Driving.netting,and tonging! 

I am seen driving the boat while Brendon is feeding out the trot line into the water. Andrew is struggling with a tangled up anchor/float rig.