by Dylan Tomine
Bob’s in his woodshop when we arrive, putting the finishing touches on a beautiful set of cabinets he’s building from trees he cut and milled himself. He shakes sawdust from his old flannel shirt and opens his brick smokehouse to hand out warm chunks of smoked salmon. “Well, then,” he says to Skyla and Weston, “I guess it’s time to get to work. Are you ready to get muddy?” Both kids nod.
“Why don’t you go inside and say hello to Joanne while I put my boots on,” he says. We open the front door and I call out to Joanne. No answer. The TV blares loudly from the other room – the Mariners are playing a day game – but still no answer. We find her asleep in her wheelchair next to a side table covered with prescription bottles. This is hardly the sharp-as-a-tack Joanne we’ve come to know. I motion to the kids to be quiet, and we walk softly through the house and out the back door.
Bob is waiting at the top of the stairs leading to the beach. He’s got a shovel in one hand and a folding beach chair in the other. He hobbles noticeably and leans on the handrail going down the stairs, favoring the artificial knee he had “installed” a year ago. But he makes no mention of it, and neither do we. “Did I tell you I bought an airplane?” he asks with a grin. We all shake our heads. “Yeah, a Lear jet…a real dandy, too.” Pause. “Well, I had to give it back,” he says, laughing his big hearty laugh, “but with what it cost to medevac Joanne home from Mexico, they should have let me keep the plane.”
It’s a brilliant day. Bluebird sky, warm sun, no wind. And the tide is about as low as it will get all year, exposing a huge expanse of muddy, cobbled beach where normally there is only water. As we walk, head-high jets of water squirt out from around our feet as butter and horseneck clams respond to the disturbance. The kids stomp around and shout with delight at each new geyser. “Bob,” Skyla says, “we’re digging clams, right?” “Nope,” he says, “we’re going duck hunting.” Skyla looks at him with a quizzical expression, and Bob waits a moment before delivering the punch line. “Geoduck hunting, that is,” he says.
Geoducks are the largest burrowing clams in the world. They range from Puget Sound up through the Strait of Georgia and into northern British Columbia, but many scientists believe they live in greatest concentration right here around our island. The geoduck’s flavorful, uniquely textured flesh makes it a prized – and extremely valuable – commodity in the Pacific Northwest, and even more so in Asia. In the native Lushootseed language, the name means “dig deep,” which pretty much sums up what’s required if you wish to eat one.
Unless, of course, you’re a commercial geoduck harvester. Then you simply blast them out of the mud with high-pressure hoses. In recent years, the clam’s growing popularity in Asia has sent prices soaring, and the state of Washington makes a healthy profit auctioning geoduck rights to commercial fishermen. At the same time, tribes around the Sound are exercising treaty rights to join in the profitable harvest. And like any highly valued industry, the geoduck fishery has spawned an underground network of poaching and black market sales. Fortunately, the commercial harvest doesn’t have a direct impact on recreational diggers like us; professional divers take geoducks from deep submerged beds using their hydraulic hoses to strafe the bottom well beyond our digging areas. But this process, much like the placer mining it imitates, doesn’t produce treasure without cost.
Off Agate Point, where Bob lives, the depths just offshore were once covered with eel grass and geoducks, which made ideal habitat for Dungeness crabs. We crabbed here for years, until the commercial geoduckers moved in and blew the bottom apart with their hoses. It only took two months to wipe out the area. A single dive boat, with high-pressure pumps and an air compressor that sounded like Darth Vader breathing on deck, hauled out cargo loads of geoducks, while uprooted vegetation floated to the surface. Our first crabbing attempt after they left yielded three small rock crabs and zero Dungeness. In a dozen subsequent pot drops there over the past three summers, we have not found a single legal-size Dungeness crab. Who knows how long the area will take to recover, if it ever does.
Once the Agate Point beds were harvested, the commercial divers moved east to work off the mouth of Hidden Cove, another former crab hot spot, and down the east side of the Island. It’s hard to understand. Our governor and state legislators constantly tell voters “Puget Sound restoration is our number one priority,” and yet significant resource extraction continues. Whether it’s industrial salmon farms, waterfront development, gravel mining, or the commercial geoduck harvest, our public resource is constantly under attack for the benefit of a few private individuals. For now, though, the intertidal geoducks appear to be safe from large-scale destruction.
Today, under ideal conditions, they are showing their shockingly large necks above the mud in great numbers. Bob explains how to identify our target species by feeling the tops of their siphons. Soft and smooth means geoduck. Crusty and hard means the less desirable horse clams. With the labor ahead, we don’t want to waste time and energy digging up horse clams. “Geoducks show well on a falling tide,” Bob explains, “so we’ll find and mark them with sticks now. Then you’ll have more time to dig ’em up.” So that’s what the sticks are for. We walk down the beach, the kids poking at siphons and shouting either “gooey!” or “horse!”
The density of sea life exposed by the tide is astounding. Fist-size moon snails graze on algae; shore crabs scuttle about in small puddles; a single, enormous purple starfish clings to a boulder, surrounded by sea-foam green anemones; the mud in every direction is pocked with thousands of clam holes and shrimp burrows. The kids leap and run from creature to creature, splashing through the water and calling out, “Dad! Dad! Come look at this!”
When we’ve placed a dozen marker sticks, Bob unfolds the beach chair, hands me the shovel, and sits down. “Skilled labor’s done,” he says, “Now I’m going to rest and watch you guys dig some clams for us.”
The shovel hits a rock one inch down next to the first stick. I move a little to the side, step on the back of the shovel and hit another rock. This goes on until I finally wiggle the blade between rocks, lean on the handle and remove a shallow divot of gravel and mud. “You’re going to have to move a little faster than that if you want any clams before the tide comes in,” Bob calls out from the peanut gallery. After 20 minutes, I’m soaked in sweat, covered with mud, and with my arm shoulder-deep in the hole, I can feel the geoduck’s rough shell. This puts my face at mud level as I reach and strain to dislodge the massive clam.
There’s nothing quite like the pungent, sulfur-salt aroma of tidal mud ripening in the sun. Especially when your face is nearly buried in it. A billion creatures, large and small, are living, dying, decaying beneath me. Using my fingers now to excavate around the clam, I eventually break the suction holding it in place and pull the enormous bivalve from its lie. A geoduck’s neck is so long that even fully retracted, it cannot fit inside the shell. They look, in a word, phallic. And huge. Let’s just say geoducks aren’t the most attractive things on the planet, unless maybe you’re a female horse.
But we’re stoked to have this one. At about three pounds, it’s an average geoduck and more than enough for a meal. Skyla says, “That’s a BIG clam, Dad!” Then she and Weston get into a brief squabble over who gets to carry it. They settle on hauling it together, proudly presenting it to Bob, who leans forward in his chair and says, “Now that’s what I call a clam!”
Turns out, twelve markers was a bit ambitious. By the time the tide comes in, we’ve barely managed to dig out four clams, including a monstrous 6½-pounder. Bob says it’s the biggest one he’s seen in years. The kids and I look at each other and laugh – every inch of our bodies is covered in black mud and sand from our efforts. Bob holds the giant clam by its neck with two hands, extending his arms at waist level, and I snap a quick photo of our trophy. He folds his chair and we make our way back up the stairs to the house.
While Bob’s in the kitchen bringing a big pot of water to boil and making grilled cheese sandwiche
s, Skyla, Weston, and I hose ourselves off and change into dry clothes. The sulfuric mud-flat odor that permeates our hands – it won’t wash away entirely for a week – doesn’t stop us from inhaling our sandwiches. Joanne is awake now, nibbling at her grilled cheese and quietly staring out the window. She whispers something and I lean in closer to hear what she’s saying. “Did you get any geoducks?” she asks. The kids drag the bucket over to her, tipping it so she can see our catch. She smiles with approval. And I wonder if she’ll make it through this, if she’ll ever be the same old Joanne again.
Lunch break is over; it’s time to get back to work. We dunk the geoducks in boiling water just long enough to pop the shells open and loosen the thick, wrinkly skin that covers their necks. After a quick dip in ice water to keep the meat from cooking, the shells slide off easily and the neck skin rolls away like an old tube sock. We cut the digestive organs away from the meat with scissors, leaving two distinctly different edible parts: the solid, muscular neck and a large strip of soft, tender body meat.
For Asian chefs, it’s the neck that makes the geoduck such a cherished delicacy. Too tough for cooking, when sliced thinly across the grain, a raw geoduck neck’s crunchy texture and extraordinary sweetness make it one of the most sought-after sushi toppings in the world. We’ll take one neck whole to slice and eat with soy, ginger and wasabi on rice. For the others, Bob sets up his ancient meat grinder and the kids take turns on the crank to make finely minced meat for chowder. I will also make geoduck dip by briefly simmering the ground necks, letting them cool, and mixing in cream cheese, seasoned salt, and green onions.
The incredibly tender body, a solid C-shaped half pound of melt-in-your-mouth clam flesh, is probably why people here go through the trouble of digging up geoducks. Once cooked, the body has a fresh ocean flavor – not unlike abalone – without any of the chewy texture usually associated with clams. I like to roll thick strips in flour, give them a quick dip in buttermilk, then another flour coating, and drop them into hot oil. For a more sophisticated meal, we’ll slice the body into bite-size chunks and stir-fry them with sesame oil, soy, chili paste, and whatever fresh vegetables we have on hand. You really can’t go wrong either way.
A month later, in the heat of a high-summer afternoon, we are at a big garden party celebrating Stacy’s parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. Tables have been set up around the lawn and the air is filled with music, conversation, and the sounds of food being served. A murmur goes through the crowd, and I look up to see Bob wheeling Joanne into the yard. She’s had her hair done and she’s smiling. People gather around, crouching to talk to Joanne, everyone happy to see her out.
As the bright sun fades into evening, Stacy, Skyla, Weston, and I sit with the Dawsons, listening to old Island stories interrupted by a stream of well-wishers stopping to say hello. Joanne is still smiling, but she’s tired now, and Bob says they have to go soon. I remember the photo I brought, of Bob holding our trophy geoduck, and run out to the car to get it.
When I return, there are even more people surrounding Bob and Joanne. I edge through the crowd and hand the picture to Joanne, who holds it at arm’s length, adjusts her glasses, and squints over the top of them. She glances at Bob and all their friends gathered around. “Bob,” she says, pausing for effect and turning the photo so everyone can see it, “you look just like one of those internet porno stars!”
The old Joanne is back.
GIVE AND TAKE
In a couple of weeks, I will be crabbed out. Which is to say, I will have eaten so much crab in such a short time, my taste for it will evaporate. And I don’t mean I’m just going to get a little tired of crab – I mean I will barely be able to stand the thought of it. But that’s a future almost impossible to see now, blinded as I am by a murderous craving for the sweet, savory taste of Dungeness. Every year I tell myself to take it easy, make it last, and every year it’s the same: I don’t listen. I eat too much. I get crabbed out.
It’s been more than six months since winter crab season closed, and our collective family anticipation is running high. Not just because we’re hungry for crab, but because opening day of crab season marks the beginning of our summer on the water. Later this month, just as garden production comes into full swing, the chaos of king salmon season will engulf us. After that, big, hooknosed silver, or coho, salmon will arrive in our local waters from the open ocean. By the time the silvers disappear into their spawning streams, leaves will be falling and we’ll be thinking about winter. It all starts now.
But first, the boat needs a little work. In the months ahead, it will be in near-constant use, leaving little time for maintenance or repairs beyond the nightly washings. A breakdown in July or August would be unthinkable. Time to get shipshape, as they say.
After dinner, I wheel the mighty Lyla-Kai (Skyla’s early pronunciation of her name combined with Weston’s middle name) out from under the covered carport into golden evening light. The fact that our boat might be the finest thing we own probably says more about the state of our other belongings than the vessel itself, but still, she’s a beauty. With 16 feet of gently curved aluminum tapering to a sharp, upswept bow, she’s little more than a car-topper compared to the hulking glass cabin cruisers that populate the Sound. Going small and light does have its benefits, though. I can launch from shallow beach ramps, tow the trailer without a monster truck, and fish all day on a couple of gallons of gas. And the fact is, we simply couldn’t afford anything bigger.
We just have to watch the weather closely. If the weather service calls for 15- to 25-knot winds, it can be rough, and we usually think about staying on shore. Depending, of course, on how good the fishing has been. Should the forecast underestimate conditions, things get ugly fast, particularly if the wind blows against a strong tide. But most weather heavy enough to keep us off the water would make fishing from a bigger boat pretty uncomfortable anyway. That may sound like a cheap rationalization from the owner of a small boat, but it’s also true.
It’s not as if the Lyla-Kai isn’t seaworthy. She was built just across the water in Snohomish with a wave-cutting, 12-degree V-bottom, plenty of beam, and a stainless steel bow rail to keep the kids from going overboard. There’s enough foam under the floorboards to keep us afloat should we ever swamp the boat—a feature I hope we never have to test. At one time, there was also a fancy console with steering wheel and windshield, but I took it out to make more space for kids and crab pots. On the stern, a quiet, fuel-efficient, and – most importantly – rock-solid-reliable tiller-steer Honda outboard powers the whole enterprise.
And then there’s the paint job. When we bought the Lyla-Kai, she was barely used, but the seller reported a “minor paint issue.” Which, of course, in my lust for the boat, I ignored. The small blister on the starboard rear quarter tripled in size the first time we put the boat in the water; by the end of our first season, it had turned into shreds of loose paint dangling over bare aluminum. Beautiful. We were going to have to repaint our nearly new boat.
As I considered everything from doing nothing (easy) to painting it myself (hard, and unlikely to be an improvement), my buddy Neal, a local salmon guru who has connections throughout the fishing world, suggested I call his friend, Steve Maris. Steve owns an auto body shop and, as a serious angler, has become something of an expert aluminum-boat painter. Most of the custom-painted aluminum boats around here – including a river dory sporting wild flames down the side – come out of his shop. Since I couldn’t afford “custom” anything and was leery of a West Coast Choppers look for our humble little skiff, I called him for some tips on doing it myself. His advice? Look at some paint catalogs, choose a color, and bring the boat to his shop next weekend. We’d worry about cost later. Then the guy spent three days laying down the kind of paint job you’d expect on a $100,000 German luxury sedan, for someone he’d never even met before. In return, he asked only that I pay for the paint and help his friend Kate with some story editing. I’m still overwhelmed by Steve’s generosity
every time I look at the boat.
While the Lyla-Kai’s BMW Monaco Blue Metallic paint (Skyla picked the color) sparkles in the late sun, Weston helps me repack the trailer bearings with fresh grease, install a new water separator, and charge the battery. Skyla drags crab pots almost as big as she is, along with the heavy, 150-foot coils of leaded pot lines, out of the shed. One of the metal bait cages has rusted through and some connector clips are missing, but otherwise everything looks good. While I repair the pots, a brief memory of being a kid getting ready to go fishing with my own dad flickers through my thoughts. There must be something about helping with family activities that’s especially satisfying for kids. Or maybe it’s just the promise of adventure these preparations hold. Of course, Skyla and Weston have their moments of bickering and complaint, but I’ve found that such moments are rare when we’re doing something outside. Watching them now, I’m thankful they seem to enjoy our work together as much as I do.
Weston climbs onto a step-stool and Skyla hands him our red and white crab buoys to stack in the bow. I lift the heavy pots over the gunwale and tie them down. The bucket of frozen salmon heads goes in the car to thaw, safe from the prying claws of raccoons. Tomorrow is the day.
With each passing summer night, the kids’ bedtimes slip later and later. Tonight we let them slide even further. No one can afford to squander a minute of our precious 17-hour days, especially a warm, dry one after all the rain we’ve had this spring. There’s still time before dark to wander through the yard and inspect our garden yet again, watching for even the tiniest signs of progress.
