BUBBA AND HIS CRABS

We emerged from our “hidey-hole” at Bock Marine after a night of thunderstorms, 60k winds, a tornado and 4.5” hailstones raged all AROUND us but (thankfully!) never directly OVER us, and set our course for Pamplico Sound. The crossing was benign—as it invariably is after a storm—and after a great 8 hour sail to Slade Creek, we set our hook in this gorgeous secluded anchorage. “Shamal” was not far behind and as we watched her pull into the Creek a local “Bubba” in a crab boat motored over to offer us his “catch”.

This friendly character had a halo of shoulder-length frizzled hair streaming out around his head, a gap-toothed smile (one of his front teeth was missing), and twinkling blue eyes. He was an absolute delight! After we declined to purchase the fish he had on offer because we already had dinner warming in the oven, he said “want to see somethin’ inerestin?” We did, and watched in horror as he reached into a bucket and proceded to pull out a helpless blue crab that had been caught in the process of moulting from his shell. “Soft shelled crab—best thing you’ll ever taste!” he said. I felt very sorry for this vulnerable creature and after telling the crab man that I could never kill it and had no idea how to clean or cook it, thought he’d go away. But this only encouraged him further. “No problem!” he said as he took out a sharp knife, stabbed it through the heart and began tearing off its still wiggling legs!! He then thrust the thing at me with a smile and said “No charge! You can have it for nothin’. It’s REAL good—you have to try it!” I quickly found my wallet and insisted he take $5.00. Big mistake! It was too much money and now he felt obligated to grab two MORE crabs that also got stabbed and had their legs torn off too! It was horrible. I finally got him to stop by drawing his attention away from the crabs and over to the luckless “Shamal” who had just anchored their boat a short distance from ours. “Oh, look—our friends have arrived! I’m sure they’ll want some of your fish. But you better hurry over there before they start preparing something else for dinner.”

That night we did indeed fry up the crabs for our supper and “Bubba” was right—they WERE absolutely delicious!