A Crabby Experience

On Friday, June 20 we headed to Galesville on the western side of the Bay. The only tricky part of the trip was making it through Knapp’s Narrows, a 1-mile shortcut canal which is subject to shoaling. Here’s one of the old Skipjack fishing boats docked in Knapp’s Narrows:


Early evening we hooked onto a mooring ball off the West River Sailing Club. That worked out fine except poor Ginger took a tumble down the four steps from the cockpit down into the cabin while we were busy getting tied to the ball. Thanks goodness she didn’t break anything but it took her quite awhile to recover (poor old gal).

The main reason we came to Galesville was to look up a relative of boating friends from Green Bay, Bob and Nan. We took a short dinghy ride over to meet Chuck and Linda (Nan’s cousin) Saturday morning and had breakfast at their lovely home. They were kind enough to offer the use of their private dock on Tenthouse Creek so we moved our home on water over there. The water is a bit low when the tide is out but a little mud never hurt anybody. Here we are next to their SabreLine m/v Molly's Magic:


We had a little tour of Annapolis and were guests of Chuck and Linda’s for lunch at their yacht club overlooking the Naval Academy. That night was “Rhythm on the River” a fundraiser event for West/Rhode RIVERKEEPER®, a group Linda is very involved with. It was a treat to hear the steel band, enjoy the catered food, hear more about what Riverkeeper does and meet fellow boaters.

I got such a kick out of their two sweet golden retrievers, I guess because they're so different from Ginger! I call them the “golden girls” - Here are the mellow Cookie and Carly chilling out. They really enjoyed riding along on the Boston Whaler when Linda gave us a tour of the area.


One of the advantages of having your own dock just off the Chesapeake Bay is you’re allowed to put down two crab traps for your own use. Here is Paul trying his hand at harvesting the Blue Crabs who took the bait of turkey necks.


Here are the unsuspecting victims, soon to be dinner:


We were given a hands-on lesson in shelling a Blue Crab. It’s quite a process but they’re really delicious. They even have a chart with pictures for novices!


You can see how the color of the shell changes during the steaming process. (sorry Alison!)


Thanks to Linda driving us to a dog groomer, we were able to get Ginger’s “problem” taken care of. They gave her a pill to kill the fleas and after her bath and haircut, we all felt much better. She was even up to helping study the charts again!

ps: She’s on Frontline Plus for the rest of the trip.