The San Francisco Crab Derby takes place at Baker Beach on the first day of crabbing season. Early Saturday morning, the parking lot was buzzing with crabbers inflating their SUP boards, putting on wetsuits, and getting their crab traps ready.
Belex pumping up a SUP board
You can crab from shore, or out at sea. The break at Baker Beach is small, but treacherous. High risk, but potentially higher reward.
I didn't have crabbing gear, so I spent my morning watching the shore crabbers. Out of a dozen crabbers in sight, barely any caught crabs. Our sea crew, however, caught plenty to compensate.
Carlos posing with a rock crab.
The communal crab cooler.
This is what the Crab Derby is all about, the feast! To prepare a crab, you grip all 8 of their limbs with your hands and smash it against the lip of a plastic bucket. That separates the shell from the torso, killing the crab. Then you pull it apart and clean out its guts. It's brutal, but according to one of the organizers, more humane and cleaner than boiling them intact. To complement the crabs, participants brought a variety of delicious homemade dishes and baked goods.
Local crab fishing is sustainable AND delicious
The event culminated with the award ceremony. The Crab Derby awards are beautiful works of art, mostly made from scrap wood and recycled crab trapping gear.
The Coveted Yard Sale Award. The term is borrowed from skiing, when you
crash and lose all your gear and "have a yard sale."
The award table
The prize categories range from biggest crab, best rookie, biggest team, sexiest sailor, and a dozen others. The awards were distributed in a completely subjective but very entertaining way by the organizers.
Overall a fantastic event, proving that crabbing can be a fun and delicious hobby. See you next year!