Canadian Crabs Compete for Crowd at Lagoon Cove

July 1st Canada Day 2008 will not soon be forgotten. We are in Lagoon Cove on West Cracroft Island at the marina owned by Bill and Jean who have laid on special celebrations for all the boaters.

The "historic workshop" and Patio building at Lagoon Cove

After the fog burned off we had a gorgeous day of sunshine. About 11 o’clock the first event was to dinghy over to the “bakery boat” which was moored at a rather decrepit floating dock near the beginning of the Lagoon and close by the ‘blow hole’. As we approach we are met by the occupant of the float/dock and Jennie and her boat full of bakery goodies. Jennie has come down from Chatham Resort Lodge to sell delicious sticky buns, cookies, pies, bread and muffins – all home made and proudly displayed in her open aft runabout. We bought cookies and muffins and were about to return to our marina when the occupant approached us and introduced himself as “Hermit Bob”. Well, we couldn’t resist getting to know a Hermit so we started chatting him up.


Trapper Dan - visitor and Hermit Bob (Right) stands beside his shack

Born in 1932 (which would make him 76), Hermit Bob tells us that his wife ran off with big ugly Steve and his children were all grown and moved out so he became a hermit. Not clear when all that happened but I should think some time back. Hermit Bob, clad in his woolen underwear shirt even though it’s 80 degrees out, lives on a float that is rapidly disintegrating. A one room shack has been built on the float and that serves as his castle. Invited inside, we see that this one room dwelling has specific areas for each function – sleeping (bunk beds – the top of which is occupied by 50 stuffed bears); eating area, kitchen and living room. All this is less than 200 square feet. Bob proudly points to his 189 manuscripts that he has written that have “gone around the world”. I tried to get out of him in what genre he wrote but the closest I got was that they were about animals (bear, fox, whales, etc.) that adopted human characteristics and off the story goes…. all 189 of them! Bob also tells us proudly that he has owned 99 boats and is ‘negotiating’ with a guy from Malcolm Island to build his 100th. Good thing too – his 99th boat doesn’t look like it will make it to 99 ½ .

I pointed to a large picture in his cabin of a beautiful black dog and he quickly told me about his long time companion, recently died and buried over at Bones Bay. He loved that dog so much that the RCMP have agreed that when he dies, they’ll take him to Campbell River and cremate him, then bury his ashes with his dog.

Hermit Bob has 2 sons and a daughter in Seattle (a lawyer we hear) who has just given him a grandson – and we are presented with a picture. What a character this guy is…. So much so, that after Richard and I leave to set our crab trap, Richard returns to continue to hear his yarns for another 2 hours.

Thankfully, Richard gets back from his yarning full of even more stories which will come out a few at a time I’m sure, and just in time for the Crab races.

The 18th annual Lagoon Cove Canada Day Crab races begin at 3:00 PM and the crabs are ceremoniously carted up the dock to the “historic workshop/patio” and each receives a number.


The crabs arrive!

The boaters pay a loonie to pick a number from the pop to find out which crab he has for the race. There are about 60 crabs racing and these are done in 4 heats and then a play-off.

Pick Your Number SVP

I got #28 which made it to the finals

Each heat, has about 15 crabs corralled in a wire cylinder upon the race-track. At the sound of the whistle the cylinder is removed and the crabs are on their way. Unfortunately many seem to not care much about our desire for them to shoot to the finish line so water and even beer are poured on them to stimulate action.


This one gets disqualified for failing the alcohol and drug test!


The Race Track

Numbers are attached to each Crab

Ready, Set.....

Go!

Crabs are offered a little encouragement from a brewski-- I think it only slows them down!


No touching the crabs Richard!!


Marina Owner Bill & Jean's grandchildren at the Crab Races -- all decked out for Canada's Birthday

And the winner --- her crab one the playoff after all the heats and she received the $60 pot and also got the privilege of deciding whether to free or cook the crab with the others.

She decided to give the crab his life in exchange for the great show.

Releasing the winning crab

The rest of the crabs were taken off to be cooked up while the rest of us returned to out boats to prepare our potluck dish. At 6:00 we joined again in the “historic workshop” building and indulged in a kingly banquet complete with freshly caught prawns and our now cooked racer crabs. Yummy!

The large buckets of cooked crab racers joined us for dinner -- prawns on the side...

What a spread!

After dinner, there was a Canada contest. This was hilarious since most of the boaters at the marina were American. Nevertheless, they had good fun trying to answer questions like What is the capital of Canada? and What is the newest territory? After about twenty of these questions, answers were tallied up and the #1 and #2 winners were two Canadian gals – the #3 winner, was my dear husband who won a cap for his head. The Americans thought their should be a prize for the highest score from an American but that was not agreed.

What great fun this day has been. A cappella dressed ship with her signal flags blowing in the wind to celebrate the day.

Sunset on Lagoon Cove and A cappella dressed up!

In the morning, we left to put into Port McNeill to resupply for the next week, do our laundry and pump out to ready us for our next few weeks tour of the beautiful Broughton Archipelago.

More later,