The Blood Blog: Fried Sand Crabs- Holden Beach 2021

Our classic “let’s just walk down to the beach but not get wet” thing that we always do

Watching babies see the ocean for the first time in their memory is always fun. Especially when the baby is as happy and cute as Issac Mark Blood.

I hatched a plan when we were at the beach last year and was determined to carry it out this year. I was going to try to eat sand crabs. And oh boy were they delicious.

Look at that beauty. It tasted like well seasoned popcorn shrimp.

Clio’s girlfriend Karissa gets major props for making the recipe much more delicious than what I was planning. We made a tempura of flour, water, and old bay seasoning and rolled the crabs in that followed by some Panko bread crumbs. Then we tossed them in the frying pan. We tried them both with and without shells, and they were delicious both ways.

We got pretty dang good at harvesting the sand crabs and low tide. We would find areas where there were just tons of them. It was so fun pulling a crab out every time I stuck my hand in the sand. The kids got in on it too and a good time was had by all.

Morgan being cute

Annie following her example

Weirdly, we have no pictures whatsoever of the other Bloods! Jonnys family, their friends the Knox’s, and Timmy had a house that was 2 miles down the beach from us. Megan’s family was there too at a house across the street from them. We took turns meeting up at each other’s beaches in the mornings.

One of the most meaningful parts of the trip was that Timmy came out to us. We had great chats driving him home at night and long walks on the beach over the following days. It was eye opening to hear about what he has been going through. He’s such a great Timmy.

Rainbow as viewed from our deck, dedicated to everyone’s favorite Timmy

Those red marks are my jellyfish sting! This was several hours after, and the swelling had gone down a lot. It wrapped all around my calf and hurt like the dickens. Not as bad as a scorpion sting though.

TURTLE PATROL 2: THE NEST BOIL

We are all sorts of knowledgeable after’s last year’s adventures with the turtle patrol. We quickly located several nearby turtle nests (not hard, there are big signs and neon orange tape around them), and deciphered the numbering system. One number is the number of turtle eggs in the next, and the other is the order in which they were laid. The nests near the other Blood’s house were quite low. Melissa Knox made a friend with a turtle patrol lady and got her phone to get updates about turtle activity. She got word that a nest was going to be dug up and that the nest next to it was likely to boil. Naturally we made the hike to go see it (minus Elliot who elected to stay behind and play video games with Max). Unfortunately we missed the dug up nest by a few seconds. A few turtles were still in there and made their way to the ocean. Some movement was observed at the nest next to it, so we hung out with Timmy and some of the cousins to see if anything would happen.

The most detailed sand castle ever kept us entertained while we waited. It had a bowling alley and all sorts of little Easter eggs.

The turtles did eventually come out… after it was too dark to really see them. No flashlights were allowed other than these red ones the turtle patrol had, and they kept turning them off. We could barely see them, but there were about 130 that hatched!

The Knells came to visit us! We had a lovely time catching up with them, even if our kids refused to talk to each other.

Snuggles with Grumpa

Annie sure loves her Aunt Morgan

These two love their filters

The walking cane crew- Karissa and Breezy

Mimi and Annie did a whole project where they collected seashells that had holes in it and made it into a mobile which is now proudly hung over her bed.