craving crabs

last weekend, my family drove to south jersey in a historic maritime town called tuckerton.

tuckerton is located close to other beach attractions such as long beach island and atlantic city.

the weekend get-away was to celebrate my aunt's birthday, so her four kids tagged along. traffic along the garden state parkway was moving slowly with other cars also headed to the jersey shore.

we bought her a cookie cake so she can blow candles. cookie cakes are easier to transport and don't melt. i did the lettering on the cake with red gel icing. the tube was just enough for the entire greeting.

no, she's not twelve years old, if you counted the candles. the four blue ones each represent 10 years, so she's actually 48. she doesn't read my blog, so it's okay to reveal her age...haha.

the house where we stayed at is actually owned by a doctor friend of ours. his family was kind enough to let us use their vacation house for the weekend. this house is right next to the waters which lead to barnegat bay and ultimately to the atlantic ocean. almost all the houses there own fishing boats such as the ones you see on the first photo.

it was my first time to experience "crabbing" here in the east coast. at first, i thought we would actually be submerged in knee-deep seawater and catch crabs using only our hands and maybe crab baskets as i remember watching on the GMA 7 reality show "extra challenge." thankfully, the task only involved crab traps that look like square cages with small pieces of raw chicken inside for bait. you attach a long string on the trap and tie the end onto something sturdy then plunge the whole thing into the water.

and then...you wait. you don't have to sit by the water forever, though. you can do whatever else you want then check on it after about 30 minutes or so. our cousins abby and jason were so into it, that they'd check like every 2 minutes.

an unlucky crab would eventually find its way inside the trap, then we'd extract him using a pair of tongs.

most of them would really hang onto the walls of the trap, unwilling to surrender to the wrath of the tongs. but, they'd end up inside the pan, anyway, ready to meet their fiery fate in the name of dinner.

we'd cook the crabs whenever we caught four or five. it's really a treat to eat these critters straight from the waters. nothing beats fresh!

even if i didn't do any swimming, the summer sun baked my skin. it was also relaxing to sit by the waters as the seabreeze swept my hair. my little cousin abby was the one who enjoyed this trip the most. i reckon she even gained some muscles lifting those heavy crab traps from the water. here she is willingly striking a nautical pose:

my family is planning to go back here in the fall for my birthday. we'll see how the crab crumbles.