oysters – Riveted

“Honey, I have something to tell you…”

Laura Domela — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 12:34:57 +0000

Okay , so remember last week when we were out at Sidney Spit in the Gulf Islands, and we went to the brick beach and brought back a few oysters? We fried 'em up that night and ate a few with the fresh crab we caught for dinner and everything was delicious.

The next morning while we were eating breakfast, Kevin suddenly turned to me with an alarmed and solemn expression on his face. "Oh no!" (gulp) "Honey, I have something to tell you. Remember yesterday, when I was shucking the oysters on the rear swim step, and you were inside working on dinner?"

"Yeah…?"

"Well, inside one of the really big oysters – I found a pearl. It was a big pearl, too. I was super excited and I thought 'Cool! I'll give this to Laura as a nice little surprise.'"

"Oh, how neat!!" I said.

"Well, there's more. When I found the pearl, I set it aside – just on the floor of the rear cockpit [the outside back deck area of the boat]. And then, I kept shucking. And then, I got to that crazy huge oyster…the one I couldn't get open…the one where you came out to see what was going on?"

"Yeah…?"

"Well, I put that oyster aside to tackle later, and then I finished shucking ALL the other oysters before coming back to my nemesis. I finally got that last mean one open and was really glad to have no more oysters to shuck. And then I brought all the oysters inside to you, and then I went back out and got out the high-pressure spray hose and washed all the oyster shells and dirt and…um, and everything off the swim step and out of the rear, um, cockpit… I guess. I sprayed it all off … really well. It was nice and clean when I was done."

"Awwwwwww."

"Yeah. So, isn't that cool that I found a pearl? It makes a good story, I guess. I'm just going to go out and take a look and see if by any chance the pearl is still out there anywhere."

Kevin went out in the rain and looked around for a few minutes, then came back in a little dejected. "Nope. It's gone. I hosed the whole area down really well last night after I finished shucking the oysters. I'm sorry, I totally forgot about the pearl."

"It's okay, honey. It's really cool that you found a pearl! And it's a good story, anyway."

A few days later, after we'd traveled from Sidney Spit to Ganges Harbor, stayed the night, then cruised out to Cabbage and Tumbo Islands, Kevin was hosing the deck off again (sand and dirt from hiking shoes, etc.). There was a little scrap of paper over one of the scupper drains. He removed the bit of paper, and guess what he found? The pearl!

It's pretty big! Maybe I should make a necklace.

Port Ludlow to Port Townsend

Laura Domela — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:13:12 +0000

We woke up to some gorgeous light at Port Ludlow this morning.

We headed north toward Port Townsend and decided to stop at Mystery Bay (on Marrowstone Island, just across the way from Port Townsend). Mystery Bay has a state park dock, and guess what they also have? A public beach open for oyster (and clam) harvesting. And hey, it's almost low tide! In we went. Map for reference:

Avoiding the naval ammunitions restricted area:

Docked at Mystery Bay:

Oysters at low tide:

I gathered good-looking oysters and brought them over to Kevin for shucking. The rules are that you have to shuck the oysters on the beach and leave the shells, so we came armed with an oyster knife, a couple of bowls, and a ziplock bag. Kevin found a little "table" spot on the piling under the pier to use for shucking:

After shucking and rinsing and counting and tupperwaring our 36 oysters (18 each), we chatted for a few minutes with a woman digging for clams, and another guy shucking oysters. It's a pretty rich spot for shellfish, open only in the off season (October 1 through April 30) and honestly, there were only four people there on a Sunday low tide.

Moody sky:

Next we headed back out of the channel and over to Port Townsend.

Passing Fort Flagler State Park (I spy an Airstream!) This campground has such a killer view of Mt. Baker:

We stopped at the Boat Haven Marina and moored for 30 minutes or so on the guest dock so we could walk over to Safeway to get more Japanese bread crumbs and a few others things (1/2 mile walk). There's really no grocery store near the Point Hudson Marina (our destination today) so this was a worthwhile stop.

The cruise in front of town from Boat Haven to Point Hudson is beautiful when the weather is this lovely:

Afternoon sail:

We picked a nice slip with a view at Point Hudson for a couple days. Check out our fuzzy slip buddy:

We're having oysters for dinner (again) with a salad. We'll probably be sick of 'em soon and stop all the Talk About Oysters, but it's still pretty fun! The shellfish licenses are combo shellfish/seaweed harvesting licenses, so I think I need to learn about seaweeds! (Kelp pickles, anyone?)

This was our sunset view from the back of Airship tonight:

Pleasant Harbor to Port Ludlow

Laura Domela — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 01:17:36 +0000

Our original plan this morning was to hang out at Pleasant Harbor until a little before low tide and then book it out to Duckabush in the dinghy for some more oyster gathering. It was pretty windy this morning though, and we decided to walk up onto higher ground to see what it looked like outside our little pleasant harbor, and whoa! It was WAY whitecappy. We decided to bail on the Duckabush plan and head for Port Ludlow instead (and maybe find another spot for future oystering).

When we first left Pleasant Harbor, we were met head-on with some pretty hefty waves. The forecast this morning said 15-25kt winds and 2-4 foot wind waves (upgraded from "less than 1 ft" forecast last night to a small craft warning today). But we've been in 2-4ft waves several times before and the it's no big deal for the Nordic Tug (it's always us we need to worry most about). I'd say our first few miles today were solidly on the 4 foot end of that spectrum, and it was dramatic but FUN! Nothing rattled or creaked, even when we were slamming down pretty hard (not even the non-plastic dishes, mom!)

Kevin took this video to give you an idea of the high seas drama:

And here I will address the freakin' windshield wipers. OMG. If you're like me, you watched that video and all you could see was the fact that those windshield wipers are TOTALLY NOT IN SYNC. The first two are usally fine, and the far right one is like, whatever dudes, I'll do my own thing thank you very much. Each wiper has it's own on/off/intermittent frequency switch, and I always carefully turn them on so they are perfectly spaced…click…click…click. They are perfectly rhythmic for about 3 minutes, and then the right one will all of a sudden, out of the blue, wipe twice, messing up the WHOLE THING. The only way to get them back in order is to turn them off, start the click…click…click…again, repeat. What is UP with that, Nordic Tugs???

(To be fair, we were in a bit of chaos here, so I may have just jammed those switches on high gear with no regard for rhythm, but trust me, it happens just like I described above most of the time. Wipe. Wipe. Pause. Pause. Wipe wipe wipe. Wipe. Wipe wipe.)

Alright. Rant over. Gorgeous view of the Olympic mountain range, huh?

So, the waves eventually mellowed out and as we were passing underneath the bridge just south of Hood Head, we noticed a bunch of cars parked, and then a bunch of people on the beach with buckets, and then a few boats anchored. Just north of Hood Head (according to my map of open public shellfish beaches) was a good oyster and clam beach, and it was just after low tide so we decided to anchor and see if we could get some more oysters. The Rocna grabbed and held quickly, we deployed the dinghy, and off we went.

Here's the route from Pleasant Harbor to Hood Head:

The wind picked up though, and the tide was quickly rising, so our haul of about 12 (large) Pacific oysters was hard-won. We headed back to the boat with our loot, only to get stuck bringing up the anchor. We need to pull it from the other direction, but as mentioned before, the wind and the current was against us and it was pretty tough to get the boat around to the other side of the anchor. Eventually we got it loose (good practice!) and were on our way again.

It wasn't much further to the marina at Port Ludlow and now we're set up and chillin'. Look at this view!!

Route from Hood Head to Port Ludlow:

We wandered around a bit as the sun was setting. There's a resort here with what looks like a pretty good restaurant, and some nice trails. The marina was closed when we got here, so we'll go register in the morning, check out the store (cuz we need more panko breadcrumbs and horseradish), and maybe have breakfast up at the restaurant. Some shots from our sunset walk:

I'm a sucker for a cool totem pole (must be those early childhood memories in Alaska):

Kevin took this one (love it!):

I cooked up our hard-won oysters as an appetizer (but we're thinking that might have been enough to be dinner), and we're listening to the new album from Whitehorse (Leave No Bridge Unburned), sipping Manhattans. It was a pretty great Saturday, with some challenging conditions and a ton of fun.

Tomorrow (we think): Port Townsend.

Panko Fried Oysters (that we harvested ourselves!)

Laura Domela — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 14:31:33 +0000

Yesterday was pretty cool…getting our own Pacific oysters from a public beach in Hood Canal, shucking and cleaning them right there in the dinghy, coming back to Airship and cooking 'em up all yummy!

Here's the messy, "during" photo:

This is how we prepared them. First, I made some hot sauce for dipping:

1/4 c light mayonnaise
1 Tbsp horseradish (I used the small package of prepared wasabi left over from the supermarket sushi we grabbed a week ago or so…I knew that would come in handy!)
1 tsp Dijon
1 Tbsp lime juice
a tiny bit of sugar
about 1 tsp. chipotle tabasco

Into to fridge with that until we need it.

Next, we mixed up in Bowl 1 – an egg dip (egg, milk), in Bowl 2 – a flour dip (flour, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, chili powder) … (I would have used cayenne instead of the paprika/chili powder but we apparently don't have cayenne on the boat…yet.).

Then, Bowl 3 was the panko coating (panko breadcrumbs, with some dried oregano and basil). I rinsed and patted the oysters dry, then did (1) egg dip (2) flour dip (3) another egg dip, and then (4) panko coating. Coated oysters went onto a tray with plastic wrap, layered with plastic between oyster layers.

That tray went into the fridge for an hour or so until we were ready to cook. Several recipes I found said to use peanut oil for frying, butI used coconut oil.

Fry them until golden brown on one side (about a minute and a half), turn and brown the other side for another minute or so. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately with the hot sauce (which was really good!) I served ours with sautéed spinach and a bottle of Dominio IV 2013 Viognier from Oregon.

These oysters were delicious! Kevin said they were the best fried oysters he's ever had, but I'm pretty sure gathering and shucking and cooking your own oysters right where you are probably contributed to that feeling. (But wow, they were seriously good.)

Guess where we're headed at low tide today before we leave?

We Harvested Our Own Oysters!

Laura Domela — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 20:27:12 +0000

This is the best feeling, gliding across a wide expanse of calm water, with no one around for miles. Sometimes I let myself imagine that the water is land, and the feeling is surreal because you really can't get this experience driving a vehicle across land. There may be a few middle-of-nowhere on a motorcycle spots that get close, but it's probably not quite as peaceful as being on the water.

We left Alderbrook this morning around 7:30am. We thought we might head up to Quilcene Bay where I found a couple of public beaches open for oyster harvesting. We stopped in Hoodsport again at the public dock (which was much, MUCH calmer than it was a few days ago) and walked up to the Shell Station next to the Hood River Market to get ourselves some shellfish licenses.

Today was cloudy with some occasional sun and blue sky, and water that was calm as can be for our cruise back up the canal.

I was browsing the good, public, open oyster beaches, and found one just south of Pleasant Harbor that looked easily accessible by dinghy, so we headed to Pleasant Harbor again.

We arrived at about 11:30am, and low tide was at 11:52am, so Kevin quickly deployed the dinghy while I grabbed a couple oyster knives, a couple bowls, and a couple of ziploc bags and a towel and then we headed south around the point toward the Duckabush public tidelands. According to the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, Duckabush was formally a commercial oyster beach, and is a superb place to harvest oysters. We also checked the shellfish safety information and all looked good for our chosen spot.

Heading around the point in the Zodiac:

Hey look! Oyster beds!

The rules for harvesting oysters is that each licensed person can get 18 oysters. The oysters must be shucked on the beach and the shells left at the same tide level where the oyster was found. The low tide was 3 feet, so we mainly just hung in the Zodiac and gathered and shucked from there. Pretty quickly we each had our limit so we headed back to Airship for some recipe research. (We each had one fresh on the half shell right there and it was great!

We figured we might pan fry them with some Panko bread crumbs back at the boat, so we opted to get some of the larger ones. This here's a big'un (so delicate, though):

This one had a little Chiton buddy so we put him back:

Counting travel time to and from Duckabush, we spent about an hour and a half total…36 oysters and a really fun experience! The oysters are EVERYWHERE and it's super easy to find single oysters (rather then clumped together oysters, harder to shuck).

See you (maybe) tomorrow, Duckabush.

Kevin, drivin' the Zodiac:

On our way back into Pleasant Harbor, just around the point, Kevin tapped me on the arm and pointed. There was a large bald eagle flying just in front of us toward the rocks with a fairly big fish hanging from his talons.

We killed the engine and rowed along the shore watching him tear at it. All I had was my Fuji x100s (fixed, wide angle lens), but I managed to get a couple of cool shots, even though the action was pretty far away for that camera. The eagle is just to the left of that stump:

We may have gotten too close for his comfort, because he made a few loud calls and pretty soon two more bald eagles were flying overhead and hanging out in the trees near him. Was he calling for backup so he could enjoy his meal, or advertising he had a fresh kill to share?

It was a great first oyster gathering experience and I think we may head back over at low tide tomorrow, before we head north toward Port Townsend. We'll probably go to Port Hadlock tomorrow, and then on to Port Townsend on Sunday. The marina at Point Hudson (Port Townsend) is full over the weekend due to the 2015 Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby (which starts today and ends Sunday).

From the PT Leader: "The derby includes 500 square miles of fishing, five weigh stations (Freshwater Bay, Ediz Hook in Port Angeles, John Wayne Marina in Sequim, Gardiner and Port Townsend Boat Haven). It boasts a $10,000 first prize, with new prizes coming in daily. The total purse is more than $20,000, including four $500 mystery fish prizes for fish of at least 6 pounds. Most prizes are donated by area businesses and residents; the largest single donation is the $1,000 third prize, donated by 7 Cedars Casino in Blyn."

Hood Canal – Alderbrook

Laura Domela — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 01:43:50 +0000

This morning we left Pleasant Harbor and headed further south into Hood Canal to explore a bit. Sunrise light was pretty this morning:

We really wanted to stop for an oyster lunch on the beach at Hama Hama Oyster Bar, but we couldn't figure out a way to get there by boat. In front of Hama Hama it's super shallow and covered in oyster beds and stuff, and on either side of the shallow parts it looked like private property. Unsure about the anchorage and after a bunch of research, nothing really gave us that "go" feeling. Plus, motoring the dinghy over oyster beds might not be cool, and when I called to find out their hours and told them we were trying to come visit by boat, they said they had no facilities for that…so, bummer. It was pretty choppy out today too, so if we'd found a place we thought we could anchor…there was the super-chop to contend with. Maybe we'll work out a plan for when we're heading back past on the way north. And maybe it will be calm. Here's a link to the entry from our previous Airstream trip to Hood River, and the Hama Hama Oyster Co.

There it is, calling to us:

We decided to stop in Hoodsport at the public dock and see if there was a good spot to grab lunch, but the public dock left a bit to be desired. As I mentioned, it was a bit choppy, and the dock felt, um, a little rickety. The wind was blowing us into the dock and the waves were keeping us tight against it (smushing the fenders pretty good). We tied onto a metal cleat with the bow line, a metal cleat with the stern line, and one of the wooden rail/cleats with the midship line, but every time the boat surged with the waves, the wooden rail/cleat pulled up away from the dock, along with the plank it was bolted to. I decided I'd walk up to the IGA (supermarket) while Kevin stayed with the boat. Maybe they had oysters in the market.

Turns out, as far as seafood was concerned, the market was a bust. Oh well. I grabbed a few things we needed, so not all was lost. (As famous as the oysters from this area are though, you'd think there would be a couple more places to get some!)

Getting away from the dock was a little tricky, but we managed it, and not like noobs, either.

It started out cloudy, but cleared up nicely by the afternoon:

We checked out the Potlatch State Marine Park mooring buoys, but there's really nothing at Potlatch State Park except for a small grassy park alongside the highway, so we continued on. (Plus, the marinas were sounding pretty good…we could really use a fresh water wash down after all this salty spray!)

Next up: Hood Canal Marina (seemed fine, but it didn't look like there was much to do there either) so we ended up at the Alderbrook Resort. They've got a gigantic guest dock out front, some hiking trails, a really good restaurant, and like Rosario Resort on Orcas Island, your mooring fee lets you use the facilities, which include an indoor saltwater pool and hot tub. (Their water was turned off, but after we paid our moorage fee and asked about it, the harbormaster came out and turned it on for us. Also, the gals at the front desk fumbled charmingly around for quite a while trying to figure out how to process a payment for dock moorage. I think no one has boated themselves here since last summer!)

Here we are, behind the schooner Pleiades (available for charter):

Looking back at the resort from Airship:

It's a beautiful place, nicely landscaped, with lots to do (and probably WAY more to do in the summer months). However, we DID see one guy on a Jet Ski come screaming around the point west of the resort earlier…in a wet suit.

We made a dinner reservation for early evening, and after some more work and a shower, headed up to (finally) have some (more) local oysters. The oysters are harvested from the beach out in front. We had 6 kumamotos and 6 Pacifics (and a couple Manhattans):

Every single thing at dinner was fabulous. First courses: Grand Marnier prawns, a caesar salad. Main courses: seared sea scallops, and crab cakes. We couldn't tell you what we liked the best. This is definitely a great destination spot, and I think we may stay two nights.

View from dinner:

As it got dark, from our table we watched a guy in a cart loading a bunch of firewood into a giant fire pit, lined with 6 Adirondack chairs along the shore. Nice! We went to check it out on our way back to the boat. Toasty warm (with dock lights in the background):

Also on the way back to the boat, we stopped and talked to a guy on the beach who was harvesting oysters by headlamp. It was low tide (a minus 1.2 foot tide or something) and it looked like he was being VERY productive. (Hey! Lunch tomorrow!)

Obviously an extremely low light photo, with my iPhone, of oyster guy with a PILE of oysters:

The sky is clear and dark here, and filled with stars and planets. It's nice to be away from the lights of the city again!

Today's route (26.6 nautical miles, 4 hours 20 minutes cruise time):

Sunny Seattle in February (again)

Laura Domela — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 21:53:02 +0000

It was another beautiful day in Seattle today. Perfectly clear skies and bright sun…warm, even!

We had some more visitors (hi Rebecca and Brian!) mid-day today…we hung out on the boat and visited, grabbed some lunch up at Anthony's, and then hung out on the top deck soaking up the sun and visiting some more. This is Jackson, their son, working on his sketchbook/journal:

Today's entry so far: "We went on a bot with frends" complete with cool drawing of a boat with lots of portholes! So sweet!

I can't get over what a gorgeous day it was/is today! We walked up to the market this afternoon to get some fresh oysters for dinner tonight (a friend from art school who now lives in Seattle is coming over…someone I haven't seen in way too long!) We got six Kumamotos, six Kusshis, and six…oh shoot, I forgot the third kind. Bah. Anyway, tonight we're having oysters, and then Cubano sandwiches (with Kevin's 72-hour pulled pork). Looking forward to another fun evening with good people!

One more shot of the pretty blue sky!

Mignonette Sauces for Oysters

Laura Domela — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 15:02:06 +0000

For raw oysters eaten on the half shell, I normally make some variation on a classic mignoette sauce: champagne vinegar, Prosecco or Champagne, shallots, fresh ground pepper. Since we picked up enough oysters yesterday for more than just one meal, I decided to make a few different sauces, so I googled "mignonette recipes" and found several that sounded interesting.

I ended up making five:

1. Classic mignontte (front, standard favorite)
2. Lemon/cucumber/jalapeno/vodka (right, bright light yellow, one of our favorites)
3. Shoyu/scallion/rice wine vinegar/ginger (dark one in the back, least favorite…we needed pickled ginger or seaweed for this one to work better)
4. Sriracha/grapefruit/tequila/scallions/vinegar (red one on the left, another favorite).
5. The fifth sauce (not shown) was more of a relish, with minced cucumber, ginger, rice wine vinegar, shallots, and pepper. It was good, but not as good as the two favorites and the classic.

We had three oysters courses last night. For the first course we smoked/grilled a few of the Shigokus on the Traeger with a bourbon chipotle butter sauce (delicious, we'll definitely be repeating this). The second course was a half dozen of the teeny tiny Olympia oysters, with the classic mignonette, and the third course was a dozen Shigokus with the variety of sauces, and a side of sauteed spinach. It was fun and delicious!

Our New Favorite Oyster

Laura Domela — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 14:45:52 +0000

Apparently, even though these are a relatively "new" oyster they've been around a few years and we're slightly late to the party, but whatever, we're here now and we'd like some of that there champagne punch, please!

These are called Shigoku oysters, and they come from Taylor Shellfish Farms in Washington. Taylor began farming them in 2009, growing the oysters in floating bags like many Pacific oysters, but these are attached to stationary lines and floats that rise and fall with the tides. The result is that the oysters get tumbled twice a day. This low-energy, low-maintenance technique (a variation on British Columbia’s more labor-intensive Kusshi) continuously chips off the oysters’ growing edge and forces them to “cup up,” getting scoop-shaped and pushing against the limits of their shell as they grow.

They are small, with a deep scoop shell and flat "lid" and are quite easy to shuck. They have a light clean flavor of cucumber and salt, and we love them.

I always experiment with my mignonette sauces. Here are a couple of base recipes I remember:

1. Champagne vinegar, champagne or prosecco, fresh ground pepper, finely diced shallots.
2. Some kind of good vinegar, a splash of vodka, fresh ground pepper, and a dash of Tiffani's kumquat bitters (like a cocktail for your oyster!)

Apalachicola Bay

Laura Domela — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:45:47 +0000

We took our lunch break today and drove down to Apalachicola for some more local oysters. (You'll also learn, if you click that link, that the 2012 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was shot in Apalachicola.)

Anyway, we went to Boss Oyster for our lunch and sat out on the deck and it was wonderful.

The view was great, and so were the oysters. We had some raw on the half shell, and several different versions of baked oysters. Fabulous (if you like oysters). Boss Oyster has their own oystermen who select and harvest the Apalachicola Bay oysters each day from their private oyster harvesting boat.

This is a great site with a ton of cool info about Apalachicola Bay and the Apalachicola oysters.

Apalachicola is a pretty sweet little town, with a working waterfront and tons of fresh seafood. We could stay here much longer. Next time!

Oh yeah, and this Lousiana Gold wasabi pepper sauce? Need to find some!!