Saturday Night On The Dock

Lately I've had crab cakes on the brain. On Memorial Day we were sitting on the beach and the Island Girl said "Ya know what I want for dinner? I want crab cakes" Yum. Crab cakes sounded good to me too but not long ago we'd eaten the last of the crabs from the freezer. I refuse to pay the outrageous price for crab meat and that imitation crab meat? Well that stuff is just nasty. So I told the Island King that it was time for us to go crabbing and restock the freezer and we decided to go Saturday evening. I took the Island Girl to an end of the school year luau and dropped her off, the Island Boys were both spending the night with friends and it was just the Island King and I. We loaded his truck with crab baskets and chicken (the best crab bait there is) and went down to the dock at one of the local marinas. This marina is owned by a real crotchety old man and he closes at dark. He won't let people fish on his dock unless they're friends of his and lucky for us he considers the Island King a friend. We watched a few boats cruise by as the sun set and listened to the music from our favorite restaurant, Dewey's, which is just a few docks down.

The Island King got the traps baited and set out and just as we were sitting down to wait the most interesting couple I've met in a long time came walking up. They'd finished dinner at Dewey's, saw us baiting the traps and wanted to come and check things out. This woman, Cynthia, traveled all over the world working as a mechanic on the Grand Prix circle. After several years of traveling with the Grand Prix she came into a lot of money and came back to the States. She said she wanted to learn to be completely self sufficient and she wanted to spend some time in each state. She told stories of learning to hunt in Wyoming, fish in Montana, learning to ride and rope cattle in Texas and then falling in love with the state of Alaska. She became a licensed big game hunting guide in the Yukon and stayed in Alaska for several years. Then she met Tony. Tony is an old fishhead from way back and grew up here in town. He'd moved to Alaska for some kind of work project and met Cynthia. They were there for several more years and then he told her she should come to Destin and learn about saltwater fishing. She agreed and here they are. He's teaching her about saltwater fishing and she's like a sponge, soaking everything up. She was fascinated with the crab traps so the Island King gave her a lesson on catching crabs in traps. She even wanted to clean a crab so she'd know how to do it. We showed her how and she went at it LOL They sat out on the dock with us for several hours, telling stories and wanting to hear our stories about growing up here. What a life this woman is leading! To be able to travel around, experiencing whatever suits your fancy sounds so nice. After they left I told the Island King that if we ever become independently wealthy we're going to do the same thing LOL

We stayed a little longer and managed to catch a few crabs. We need a few more to make those crab cakes so we'll be going back one night this week and hopefully will have LOTS of crab cakes next weekend. There are a lot of wild cats that live behind the marina. They won't let you come close to them but they love fish so we always catch a few pinfish and throw to them. We were so busy talking to Cynthia and Tony that we only caught one pinfish all night. We threw it up on the driveway and the cats came out of nowhere to get it.
One big cat was the bravest. She ran up, looked at us to make sure we weren't coming any closer,
then grabbed the fish and took off.
We cleaned the rest of the crabs and it was time to go home.
It was a good night and we really enjoyed meeting Cynthia and Tony.
I hope we run into them again some time.

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