Last Saturday was the Dungeness Crab opener for this part of California. My friend Kevin and I decided we'd get on the water Friday afternoon before dark so we could anchor in place and wait until the midnight bell ring for the season to start.
I've spent spare time over the past few weeks upgrading a switch panel for lights, moving my bilge pump switch, installing LED lights in the Cuddy, Wheelhouse and on the rear deck. I changed my mind about wiring a few times, and will continue to make changes, but the idea is that each light should be on it's own circuit and switchable. Ok to have the red and green running lights and white anchoring light on the same circuit, but no others.
Currently cuddy cabin light is on it's own circut.
Deck Light which is Red or White is on it's own circuit.
Running lights and all around white light is on a circuit, but I currently also have the wheelhouse white light. I will be separating them and put wheelhouse light on it's own circuit / switch.
Because there a lot of whales off shore right now, the Commercial Dungeness season is postponed, and the recreational Dungeness season is restricted to Ring gear, snares and "tacos". No pots are allowed until Fish and Wildlife says so. But we had limits of Dungeness within about an hour and half using Snares and Tacos, and then set about releasing smaller legal crabs for larger legal crabs. We had a crab pot tied off to the side of the boat to act as a live well, and the crabs suffered no harm. At daybreak we called it a successful first day of the season and had two very nice limits of commercial size / grade Dungeness, as well as 11 good sized Rock Crabs. I can attest that both are super tasty, though the bodies of the Rock Crabs have quite a bit less meat than the Dungeness.
It's really amazing to be out on the water from dark until sunrise, anchored in an area that pretty quickly gets blanketed in fog. Kevin and I switched off napping and watch duty. The Shirley Lamar was a perfect boat for crabbing and napping.
Life is good!
