Starfish Eating the Mussels

On a New York subway you get fined for spitting, but you can throw up for nothing.

The following morning after our arrival on Whidbey Island was the day that Joe decided to show us how HE caught crabs.  Now Joe’s a professional at this since he’s been doing it in the same place for years. 

It was a beautiful morning.  Just three of us wanted to go put the crab pots in the water.  However, the offer was made to everyone so no one was left out.  It was just neither Janice nor Terry really wanted to go out in the boat at that time.  The sun was shining, the water was like glass and the best part of all was that it was a minus tide.  We got to see starfish feasting on the mussels on the wharf.  The minus tide is what made it so phenomenal.  As the water had receded with the tide, lots of starfish remained on the ramp and on the wharf.  They were waiting for the tide to come back in.  In the meantime, with camera ready I really enjoyed snapping dozens of photos.  I had never seen anything like it before.

After the boat was launched, we circled to the main wharf to grab a bunch of mussels and take a look at the starfish that were busy sucking the bodies of the mussels out of their shell. 

The crab pots were dropped using chicken and mussels as bait. The plan was to leave them in the water to tempt the large male crabs.  Later a few of us would go back to collect the treasure.  That was the plan.

Next, we went back to Joe's Place to catch up with Janice and Terry.  Joe was itching to show us the little town of Coupeville.  On our way there we circled the bay where mussels are farmed.  I had eaten a lot of mussels but had never seen a mussel farm. It was interesting.

One of Joe’s favorite places to eat in the little town of Coupeville is Toby’s.  So, that’s where we went.  We had to agree with him that the food was excellent.  I had the halibut fish and chips along with a cup of fabulous clam chowder so I can vouch for those items.  Coupeville was a cute little town.  They had a festival planned for the weekend so there was lots of activity.  Two ships were tied at the end of the dock.  They were intended to battle each other during the festival on Saturday.  Jerry and Joe hung around the ships sizing them up for a while, Janice went shopping and we just wandered around a bit.  With five people, coordinating things can be a little difficult and awkward at times.  Eventually, we all finished with our scouting around and headed back .... well, kind of.

However, the day wasn’t over yet.  The crab pots needed to be fetched and the catch checked out.  Then, there was the Happy Hour down the street that Joe had been invited to.  Since he was instructed to bring all of us with him, we crashed their party until they kicked us out.  Well, they didn’t kick us out but you’ve got to remember we still had the crab to cook.  Then, of course, we had to eat it.

It was a long day but we did it all.  Joe’s a hard one to keep up with.  No one got a nap.  He kept us pretty busy but it was certainly an interesting day.  We learned a lot about a lot of things.

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As a little treat for all of you trying to sell your home, I’m sending you this Saint Joseph. We saw it in a gag shop in Coupeville, thought it was cute and knew everyone would have to have it.  Now it wasn’t that I was too cheap to buy a dozen of these (but I was), I just knew it would be hard to forward it on.  So, here’s a virtual one.

Isn’t it worth trying everything!! 

-- August 11th