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Welcome to the latest series of Super, Neighbours blog posts where we highlight incredible travel destinations in British Columbia! |
Our morning started down at the pier where Blake from Cleanline keeps their primary vessel, aptly named Off The Hook. We had a brisk spring morning with no rain, which my wife and son and I were all pretty happy about. My wife and I were just happy to get out onto a boat for the first time ever with our 4 year old Arlo pictured here. He's reached a point where we felt he'd be patient enough to spend some a bit of time out on the water, so Blake planned a morning of pulling up some of the shellfish traps he'd set prior to our arrival.
Though it was relatively dry out that day there's always the threat of rain, but it didn't worry us because the experience on Off The Hook is one where you'll always be comfortable and dry. The back part is obviously open but the front is enclosed and where the washroom is, underneath, is dry and quiet if anybody (toddlers!) need some time to chill.
Our first stop was fairly close to Tofino, just across the water where we pulled up a crab trap.
As you can see above there were a bunch in the trap - three of them ended up being big enough to keep. Actually, even though there were a few others who were technically big enough, you're only allowed to keep male Dungeness crabs. Blake taught Arlo how to tell the difference between males and females, and which ones we were allowed to keep, and why. "All female crabs must be released... to protect the stocks by allowing females to reproduce.". is a bit more on that if you want to dig deeper.
After we had put the crabs into the hold, Blake drove us for a little over half an hour to the secret spot where he had dropped a few prawn traps earlier. This part of the trip was incredible, just cruising past islands and seeing sights like this old shipwreck.
Once we arrived, we grabbed the buoy out of the water that had a rope with the prawn traps on the end. Blake hooked it to this fancy electric Scotty winch pictured below and Arlo helped him pull/thread the rope into a tidy pile in a pail as the traps were hauled up from the depths.
There were a few traps on the line, and this is the first one, filled with around 50 BC spot prawns!
We ended up with 300 prawns in total! Here's Arlo holding up our catch. My favourite caption for this photo is "Uh, little help here?".
Thanks to , and of course for a wonderful morning out with the family. Stay tuned for Part 2 where it's just me and Blake out on the boat, reeling in the first sportcaught halibut in Tofino in 2013! We really lucked out.
