Steamed Crabs!!

Equinox is down at the Hyatt RiverMarsh Marina, part of the Hyatt Resort here in Cambridge for a visit with Ron's sister Laura, her husband Jeff, and their two kids, Marina and Jordan. We've had this visit on the books for some time, since we knew we would be gone for most of the summer and wanted to get together before school starts for all the kids on August 31st. We left Annapolis bright and early (Ron doing an amazing job bringing Equinox out and about from the very tight slip at AHBY) to have a bit of a choppy cruise in snotty winds from the south. Only annoying, since it sprayed the front of the boat, and we gave her a good wash when we arrived at the Hyatt Friday afternoon. By then, it was the typical southern Maryland weather: hot humid hazy with big cumulus clouds building in the sky, culminating in a late afternoon thunderstorm. Everyone else joined us in the evening, having driven from the D.C. area, and we enjoyed a fun dinner together at the Blue Point Provisioning Company restaurant, just a few yards from where the boat was docked.

Saturday morning we took the dinghy around to J.M. Clayton's, the crab packing company located in Cambridge. Ron loves going there for the freshly picked Maryland Blue Crabs that they sell, and we purchased quite a few containers of both their fresh jumbo lump crab that was just hand-picked that very morning, to a few containers of the pastuerized crab meat that will last in the fridge a bit longer. We took a tour of the picking and packing area....unfortunately, all the crabs were finished being picked, so Laura didn't get to see them in action first-hand, but they were still canning the crab while we were there. Old-school, done right!

View of J.M.Clayton as we arrived in the Dinghy

Running the cans of crab through the canning machine

Fresh out of the shell and into the can within minutes

One of watermen at the J.M. Clayton loading dock

We did have to immediately open a can of the claws once back to the boat, just to do a little taste-testing of our own for a luncheon appetizer! That was one thing we really missed while in Bermuda, having Maryland crabs!! After some pool time most of the afternoon, we headed over to Suicide Bridge Restaurant for dinner, where we'd made reservations (AND, more importantly, had called ahead to reserve some Jumbo steamed crabs for our dinner!!). They were absolutely delicious, and we all spent the evening cracking and picking our dinners quite happily!! Nothing like Old Bay on steamed Maryland Blue Crabs!

....at last! We've been