Best Laid Clams of Mice and Men

7/10/2013

Or

The Road to the State Penn is Paved with Good Intentions.

Washington Discover Pass ($30 annual)

Okay, the original plan was to go to Dosewallips State Park. The boy has been pestering us to no end so I decided to bite the bullet and look for a place to go. In addition to having a silly name, the above park would be a bit of a drive; being on the other side of Hood Canal. That was both a plus and a minus. It's a pretty drive but would be at least an hour-hour and a half to get there. The name came up since a friend of mine used to go there to go clamming.  

And it required a Discover Pass! I make a point of stopping by Discovery Park and taking a big, toilet-paper-wasting dump. And then blowing my nose. My personal form of civil disobedience. 

Washington State Shellfish License-Adult ($16) 

However, the Washington State Department of Useless Information listed Dosewallips as being in the "Advisory" category with reason "Cook All Shellfish. WARNING: This beach can have multiple classifications." No! Really? Cook the shellfish? Can have multiple classifications? Well, this was a Font of Nothing. 

So, I did a search of what was open to clamming. Kitsap County? Nothing. Jefferson had Kinney Point. Not a state park but a DNR. That's kind of like a park, right? It looked nice and had a nice calming "Green" for status. I did a google reviews search, got directions, equipment, the boy and headed out yesterday mid-morning.

Clam Rake  ($24.99) 

So, the kid and I headed Northeast to Marrowstone Island. No problem. Well...A bit of a problem. We were certainly surrounded by water; it being an island and all. However, there didn't seem to be any road that went to this State Park. We drove over a good portion of place to no avail. Time to check the information I'd gathered before leaving. Ah...When the website said, "It is reachable by beachable boats only.", I guess that meant a person couldn't drive to it. Well, that seemed a dumb-assed idea. This is 'Merica, where we should be able to reach any place in These United States without the horror of having to leave your automobile. 

My best laid plans had gone awry. My Plan B? Drive till we hit a beach. So, we did. 5 minutes up that road it was Mystery Bay State Park. We left our Deposit for the Governor, and then read the signs saying there was no clamming allowed at this beach. It having been seeded with clam and oyster...eggs? to build up the population. And we saw all the signs saying the beaches to either side of the park's beach were private property so we common folk shouldn't even think about it. Another thing I learned. The public doesn't own the beach. Huh. 

On we drove. 

Gas ($25) 

North, north we went. Eventually, we made it to.... Fort Flagler State Park. Yes! Despite my confused meanderings, it was actually pretty close to Kinney Point so I figured the water wouldn't be that much different. Makes sense, right? Just to be on the safe side, I asked the nice lady in the information booth if there were any good clamming spots in the park and whether there were any current shellfish warnings. (At this time, I do not have a smart phone and so couldn't check the wdfw.wa.gov website myself.)  Yes and no were the answers I got. She pointed me in the direction of the best beach and 4 minutes later, we were there. As we were going out, a nice-looking family was returning to the parking lot with their bucket full of shellfish. We exchanged a few pleasantries and on we went. 15-ish minutes later (and after getting advice from two other groups taking pity on us) we hit "the spot". Xander working the clam rake and I worked the ladies' garden shovel. We basically just walked around till something squirted us from below. Then we dug. Most were butter clams, (or maybe Manilas) though there were a few huge cockles. Okay, this is a bit of speculation but they were definitely all clams. And no geoducks. (Shudder...)

2.5 Gallon Bucket with Lid  ($6.49) 

Our little gallon jug was filled up after maybe 35-45 minutes of digging. We collected perhaps half of what we could have (limit for most clams is 40 a day per person) but I figured we had enough to get at least one good meal out of it. And I thought the longer we were out there, the greater the chance Officer Not So Friendly would show up and helpfully point out all the rules I'd broken. So, the boy and I took a few photos, got somewhat cleaned up and put the clams into our newly purchased bigger bucket with more sea water. We gassed up, bought some snacks and headed for home.  

Convenience Store Snacks ($5.50) 

I asked Xander to give Wendi a call to tell her our estimated arrival time. Based upon our initial trip, I figured we'd take about an hour and a half to get home. To my shock, we crossed the Hood Canal Bridge in about 20 minutes. Without the clueless wanderings, the return trip back was about 20 miles. We got home way before Wendi did which gave us time to unload the car and bring in our Not-Very Deadliest Catch. (Though one of those suckers did manage to squirt me in the face. Thank Goodness I never go outside without my safety sunglasses!) 
And I had time to look up Fort Flagler on the doh.wa.gov website. See if I missed anything important. Like the information below: 

(Screen Capture of website with Fort Flagler definitely in The Shellfish Red Zone.)

.... Well, would you look at that! Ain't that a kick in the head? Seems the nice Info Lady didn't have correct info. Nor did the few other families we saw out there clamming.  Huh. 

So I had a 20ish toxic clams cooling their (figurative) heels in my new bucket. Wonderful. Smashing. And Mrs. Hardy is someone who gets nervous about expiration dates on distilled water. (Okay, that might actually be me.) Just not interested in risking it. 

What to do? Seemed kind of mean to just throw the little bivalves into the garbage. I mean, they were still alive after all...So... Maybe do kind of a Free Willy thing? 
Okay, but it was getting close to supper time. No way I was driving back to Morrowstone Island. Even if it would be a much quicker trip without all the diversions. The heck with that; I'll just do it somewhere around here. I seriously doubt my passengers would care. 
But Wendi, bless her heart, had a concern, "You just gonna put these toxic clams into the water around here? Can you do that? Is that legal?" 

Of course, that was a ridiculous concern. Pretty much every beach in the county is closed. Nobody is going to care about some dude returning clams to our toxic sea. Right?.....
On the other hand, being arrested for " Spreading Marine Biotoxin" would be a really stupid thing to get busted for. 

"Local man, former teacher seen above with former wife and former son, to be sentenced today for the lamest crime ever."  

So, no, I was sure this would be fine but, let's just say I didn't advertise what I am doing. Just, you know, do it on the sneaky-like. Sigh. And I really am trying to do a good deed here. I thought I was anyway. A good deed. 

So I zip over to Scenic Beach. (In a bit of a hurry so I don't bother with my usual "deposit for the governor".) Wow! I have literally never seen the Scenic Beach so crowded. Maybe somewhere else. 
Like the boat launch just one mile away. Looks good. Nobody around. Maybe I'll just head back to my car and..... What the hell are those people doing? Out of nowhere a fat family of dumb people drive up to the boat launch and park. Just park and just stand there stupidly looking stupid. Without a boat, I might add! I think it's very rude to hang out at a boat launch without a boat. Frankly, I think it's downright suspicious. (Unless you are trying to release wildlife back into the wild. That would be a noble act of nobility.) 

Okay, so let's zip into Silverdale. There's a park on the beach. Probably crowded but a noble-looking fellow with a bucket wouldn't attract too much attention. Lots of people fish off that pier. 

(Important side note. What the boat ties up to and what you walk on is the "pier". The water between piers, where the boats bob up and down is the "dock". Call the Pope. Otis Redding could apparently sit on water.) 

Well, my luck held because I could not find a single parking spot anywhere near the park. Never happened before but yesterday was the day. Time to take a break and just hope the little suckers didn't start boiling in the back. Took time to walk a couple miles at the Y. 

Refreshed and now very ready for dinner, I took a quick pass by the Silverdale park. Still full. Time to drive out to Seabeck again. It was high tide so the water was right up to the sea wall in "downtown" Seabeck. I pulled over. Walked my new bucket a good distance away from a family letting their dog play in the water. Waiting. Traffic goes by. Waiting some more. Look around (but not in a suspicious way) and nobody seems to be looking my way. Off with the lid. (Ugh...They all have their...dangly part out.) Keeping the bucket in a firm grasp using both hands, I heave the contents as far out into the water as possible. Good luck, boys. You're on your own now.
Total time from leaving the car to my return: 35 seconds. Time to make my get away to the fabulous chick-pea burger awaiting me at home.

Since I am not writing you this from prison, you may assume that either spending roughly $100 to transport some clams about 25 air miles south isn't a crime OR nobody in authority was around to witness the wrong doing.  Either way, I'm probably okay. 
Xander will remember to fun of catching clams and the joy of seeing his father getting squirted in the butt. Some things are beyond price, my friends. 

And I still have all of August to find a better beach. Maybe Dosewallips.....
We could go to Long Beach and make it an overnighter. 
Probably need a clam gun for that......

Feared By Bi-valves Everywhere,

Brian