It's
at Jonathan's Alaskan Experience
Sunday, April 30th - Clam Digging in
Kachemak Bay
We had some very low tides this weekend. I took time to go down to
Bishop's beach and search for clams yesterday. I had wanted to go
digging for razor clams up in Ninilchik, but it just didn't work out.
Did I say I'd never been clamming before?
Jennifer drove me down to Ocean Shores Motel for a dropoff so she could
have the car while she and the
girls went to the Homer Theatre. They went to see the latest moveie in
the Homer Library's Children's Movie Series.
Low tide was about 10:15am, and
I
made it down in time to go down to the rocky area way off to the
right, toward's Cook Inlet. It was a fun
learning experience. I brought back several butter clams and a couple
of cockles. After looking through the cookbook and several Internet
websites I settled for cooking them in a pan with butter and garlic.
Today's low tide was not quite as low, but it wasn't as early either. I
went again and made it farther down the beach. Once again, I
found a place
where the clams were plentiful. The sun was warm and the air was cool
with hardly a breeze.
All I had to do was stop. listen and look. After
a minute or two of being still and quite, the clams would squirt water
out from their hidden locations. Sometimes there would be
a little squeak and a splash, too. With a screwdriver as a pry bar, it
only took a minute or two to dig a butter clam out from between the
gravel
and rocks.
Clams weren't the only thing I found. I also found two dungeness crabs.
They were fairly large for small crabs. They were hiding in the muddy
areas where I was digging. They were a little miffeded that I
disturbed them.
There were several people out this morning. Frank Vondersaar came along
looking for an octopus. Niel McArthur had
him on a mission. Octopi only live a couple of years. It was only about
two
years ago that the girls and I were on the beach when Neil found an
octopus. Since then the Pratt Museum has been keeping on display. I
imagine it's time to replace it.
By the time the tide had turned back to the place where I was hunting
I had about 20 clams. Later I discovered that three of them were filled
with nothing but sand. It was slow going at first, but I started to
figure out that I didn't have to wait to see a squirt. All I had to do
was
turn over large flat rocks and watch for a clam to pull it's siphon
back into the gravel and sand. I was able to work more quickly that
way.
Butter clams are pretty good. They're kind of small, about 2 1/2 inches
long. The smaller ones need to be put back, and you have to put them
back right-side up or they'll die. They are yummy, kind of like oysters.
Now I can add clamming to my list of Alaskan experiences.
Jonathan Coke's
Home Page
A mish-mash of links (Bluemarble)
Joanna
Coke
Joanna's Space
Jessica Coke
Jessica's Alternate Site
Updated April 30th, 2006
Jonathan Coke, 4721 Rochelle Rd., Apt B,
Homer, AK 99603.
