Crabby About Crabs
When it comes to things of a Beaufort nature, I am definitely a fan. I even love the things most people don't - heat, humidity, bugs. Hurricane watches, bridge closings, sunburn. I love just about everything about my Sea Island home.
I say this first and with some emphasis knowing that my next statement will make you wonder if I'm really the southern girl I profess to be. Because there is one thing about Sea Island living that I don't love.
Crabs.
Blue ones. Fiddler ones. Rock ones. Especially King ones whose legs have been pulled off and put on a plate. (I can feel you staring at me already.) Maybe it's their little stick eyes or their resemblance to big spiders. Perhaps it's the multiplicity of jointed legs. I don't know. (And yes, I'm very aware that King Crabs are not found in the waters around Beaufort.)
So lest you think I've seceded from the great State of Southern Happiness let me explain.
My crustacean doubt started early in life with a dream that my school (Beaufort Academy) was being overrun with thousands of blue crabs. In the dream I was standing on the porch of the high school building with a broom, delivering sweeping blows at these skittery creatures that just would not stop coming. Only a few months after that I awoke one Saturday morning to an unusually high spring tide. Apparently, the general fiddler crab population had been advised that evacuation was necessary so they left their homes in the mud and retreated to our house, about 100 feet from the creek. For lack of a more eloquent way of describing it let me just say this: THEY WERE EVERYWHERE. On the porch. In the grass. And (horror of horrors) hanging on the side of the house. My nightmare had come true.
And thus it began.
Of course, once my brother discovered that crabs sent me into a panic he tortured me with them. He would catch little fiddler crabs and chase me around with them. Sometimes he succeeded in getting them into my shirt. Perhaps this was his idea of Immersion Therapy but if he was trying to cure me of my phobia it was a resounding failure.
One lovely summer day at the beach I was minding my own business, wandering happily through tidal pools only to have a crab attack my little toe. I danced around like a mad person trying to get that thing to let go. My screams could be heard in Yemassee. My mother explained to me that "that poor little crab" was more scared of me than I was of it, but that has never actually been proven.
And then there was the day I came home from my summer job at House and Garden Gift Shop on Lady's Island to find my parents gone, my brother off somewhere. I let myself in the back door, put my things down, and walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water. Imagine my surprise when I found a blue crab in the kitchen sink (very much alive and not appreciating being held captive) which my brother had netted out of the creek and sequestered for his supper later on. Now that you know me and crabs you can probably picture my reaction. It was somewhat similar to the one I had when we were out shrimping from a little john boat in the creek and, on pulling in the shrimp net, I found that I had caught a big daddy blue crab who immediately got himself extricated from the net and dropped into the boat.
There wasn't enough room in that boat for me and the crab. So I got out. Right in the middle of the creek. At the time, it didn't occur to me that there were thousands more just like him where I had retreated to.
So here's the deal.
Before you vote me off the island (Hunting, Fripp, St. Helena, wherever....) because I'm not a crab lover, just remember this: I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how someone ever looked at a crab and thought, "Wow! That looks delicious! Let's eat it"! So if you invite me to your next party you can be sure I won't be double-dipping in the crab dip. Your other guests will be greatly entertained if you find a fiddler crab and chase me around with it. And if we're ever in a seafood restaurant together I promise that I will never, ever (ever) ask you to share your crab legs with me. They're all yours.
Because you'll never catch me taking a picture of a crab, I had to borrow. Thanks to the following for their crustaceanly pics: