Love and Crabs

To pick up where we left off, Hubs and I have just arrived at a pretty shady-looking resort to hunt crabs with mini-tridents because we saw it advertised on the internets...

Now, I'm starting to wonder if this is a good idea at all. The front office was completely empty, with one small restaurant that looked closed and the whole place just looked dead. But we made it. And we would hunt those damn crabs if it killed us. The resort didn't offer up too much information on what we should do with the three hours we had to kill now, but we were certain that their had to be a better alternative than sitting in the empty waiting room with no magazines. So we asked if we could go outside and an uninterested front desk employee waved us off.

Outside was much better. We walked down a path to be greeted by a small tiki bar that, had somone not come by and opened, we would have raided anyways. We were tired, hot, a little anxious about how this story would end and we saw Coronas. Delicious Coronas. Two, please. Our bartender was from Malaysia, which is where lots of the staff are from and he was very helpful introducing us to the resort. We found out from him that the resort was owned by a Russian man and that 90% of the visitors at the moment were actually from Russia. Ya don't say... Just another reminder that we need to learn Russia. Because you never, never know when you'll need it.

Once we had our Coronas, complete with lemon garnish, we walked down to the resort's private beach, letting all those familiar sounds and smells of gulf water remind us of home and wash away our anxieties over the trip thus far. We ordered a fruit platter, another round of Coronas and enjoyed the salty water and napping residents unaware of their now bright-red coloring. Hubs and I laughed and talked about our own beach adventures, what we miss about our beach back home and what beaches we would see in the future. It was absolutely picturesque. The scenery and the time of life.

It started to get dark, so we hopped about our little boat with half a dozen Russian couples and surrounded by chatter we didn't understand (again), we were off to hunt crabs! We arrived at our spot once we couldn't see the resort anymore and it had gotten completely dark and hopped into the water with our min-trients and our spot lights. Not two seconds within getting into the water, I remembered that I am terrified of marine life and maybe this wasn't a great idea anymore. Gone are the daydreams about fresh crab and butter, they're replaced with horrifying visions of killer Arabian crabs that I can't see, but are very hungry for delicious toes.

Focus. I am the hunter, not the hunted.

So, you walk around in this shallow water with your spotlight in one hand, spear in the other and you keep a sharp eye out for anything moving. Then, you get right on top of it with your min-trident and STAB! When you pull out your catch, sometimes its wiggling around and can fall off, which is terrifying. Especially when you get to a particularly rich crab area and people are flinging very angry, panicked crabs all at once. I half expected a crab to go flying straight into my life jacket at any given moment. Other than that, I was relatively collected, considering the threat of angry crabs attacking my toes was very real. And I speared my fair shair of crabs, too. Our guide was a little Malaysian dude who spoke limited English, but it was better than his Russian, so he helped us out tremendously. That guy could spot crabs from miles away!

We filled our giant bucket with crabs and headed back to the resort where a feast of all different sorts of foods awaited. They literally threw our catch into a boiling pot and by the time we had turned in our life jackets and water shoes, we had a plateful of fresh, steaming crabs. Delish. It was tough, though, wanting to chatter endlessly about our hunt and wanting to devour as much food as possible. Although, I soon gave up on the crab. It wasn't like eating at Joe's Crab Shack, where things are sort of pre-cracked...

Hard to imagine that a day that started off so uncertain could end up being one of the best there ever was. We ended up just taking a cab ride home ($70) and, to be honest, we probably spent just as much through our roundabout way of reaching our destination as we would have had we just gotten the round trip cab fare in the first place. But that's no fun. And certainly not our style. I mean, had we done that, I would only have one blog entry to share. And now... we have two!


Like all of our adventures so far, Hubs made it even more fun. We've had this crazy romance that neither of us expected nor dreamed would be so perfect in its own rite. And in the spirit of honeymooning, I am getting to know my partner and soulmate more and more with the coolest of backdrops, crab hunting only being one story in the grand storyline. My cup runneth over.

Cheers to the hunt. Whether it be crabs, a Corona or life at its fullest.