A happy story about losing crab gear for a change.
I finally got a chance to get the boat out and go crabbing two weekends ago. Launched at Boston Harbor out of Olympia and made the short trip to Zangle Cove. The crabbing was pretty dismal. No keepers and a dogfish in one pot munching all of my bait. It was fun to get my 7 month old boy out in the boat with us though. I started pulling up pots (2 square traps and 2 rings) as the tide started to head out and came up one ring short. The water was moving quite a bit faster in that area than I had seen before. I went in circles looking for the ring for quite a while but had to head in, a 7 month old can only last so long out there. I had just bought the two rings for $20 (had to fix some of the netting) so it didn't kill me to leave it, but I sure wasn't happy about it either. I figured some kelp caught the rope and pulled it into the deep water forever. Lesson learned, I need to weigh down the rings like the traps or make sure I pull them before the water starts ripping.
Now two weeks and a day later I get a voicemail from a great guy named Gary from Gig Harbor. Says he found my ring off the north end of Blake Island by Manchester in 350' of water. What a trip! (see picture) That's 50 miles if it took the fastest route, which I'm sure it didn't. I'm surprised the buoy could float that ring. Makes me chuckle thinking about my little buoy cruising under the Narrows bridge. Glad such a nice person found it and called!
