PB Crab trip out of Marin with PICS now

Got a call from my Uncle Wednesday night, "hey are you busy tomorrow?"   well yeah, why whats up.  Once a year I get a chance to go out on my friend of my late brother in laws boat for crabs.  Conditions are really good.  Now mind you we are supposed to go out on a charter boat on Monday but conditions are less than favorable.  I call the GF who gives me a green light.  I call in and take a day of leave and go for it.  I meet up in Sausalito at 5:30.  We go out on a 41 foot New Zealand Made Tri-Hull, smooth ride, win engines.  Nice boat.  Seven of us.  We go past the GG and then start slightly WNW for a couple of miles.  We come up on the traps and it short order we have this operation going at speed.  These guys are what I would call "Gentlemen Sportsmen,"  They are all semi retired types.  They all shoot, hunt, golf, dive, and all in their 60's +.  Dave the Captain asks me if I have any crabbing expierence and I tell him of my kayaking expierence ou tof HMB.  I start off with counting , these guys are no slouches and have a massive electric block and tackle set up which hauls the pots in short order.

After a couple of pots where they see I have no fear of the crabs and am doing the count and picking the crabs and tossing them from one bin to another, and can't bust the rookies chops yet, Dave says give Kevin a chance on the hook.   So far so good.

So know I am on the hook, never done this before, we get along the pot and I toss, miss it.  Try again, miss it.  The hoot and hollering is coming in hard.  Third shot get it!  I don't misss again.  One throw was long, I had to use the whole rope to get to it, but I just got it.  Got a few at boys for that one.  The regular guy says it would of been a reach for him. 

Conditions were smooth as could be.  We scored 70 crabs for 7 people.  We were back in by 10:30.  Now I must admit this the first time I have gotten a limit of crabs.  thats a plus and a negative.  It is too much for Jan and I.  We had her dad over for dinner and sent him home with crab, we gave our neighbor a crab much to her surprise.  While doing the gentleman crabbing was fun, it is not a manner I would seek out to do normally.  There was a "lack of challenge" that you get from doing it yourself, paddling against wind and wave. dealing with the rock crabs that steal, trying to get those undersized crabs out and not roll.  I don't know, it did not feel as rewarding it to me as a fisherman.  The flip side is I got to spend some time with my uncle, which is always fun, and at 70 I know he won't be around forever, and in the near future will be moving to Phoenix with my aunt.
PIC S to follow