Sea Creatures and Guests

 Our fishing vessel, Dirt Claw'd, is expanding its crew, or at least its guest log. We have been blessed with a number of guests out to fellowship with friends and work for food. Dirt Claw'd has a full docket of guests for the next few weeks with more folks interested in coming along for the adventure. Thus far, all have had fun with surprisingly little sea sickness.


Of course proper deck behavior is an issue, as Casey threatens to chomp down on shrimp while the kids work to sort shrimp.







Sea creatures are always welcome aboard.  A shovel nosed shark found his way on to the deck (pictured left), as well as a few stingray and a dog fish, which are all in the shark family. As an interesting note, dog fish are a popular food treat in Japan. Fisherman here on the East Coast would pack dog fish in wet straw and ship them all the way to Japan. And these hardy little survivors would still be alive after weeks of travel. Amazing!


Every once in a while we pull up a particularly fierce critter like this little puffer fish. He sucked in a pile of water and blew himself up like the 'incrediable hulk' of girth. All aboard were terrified of his imposing roundness. In real life they do this expansion trick to keep larger fish from being able to swallow them.

As I have grow older, I find myself performing this same girth enlarging trick as the puffer. It is going to take a pretty big fish to swallow this man's belly. In fact, I think I'll go into the kitchen and expand my anti-Jonah physique. You can never be too safe at sea !