The big weekend with all of my sisters and my cousins and my aunts is over. We had a marvelous time and the weather mostly cooperated. Here is a smattering of the activities people indulged in over the course of the weekend: swimming; playing on and around the Aquillo (sailboat); water tag; water wresting; playing fox and geese, Frisbee, and paddle ball on the sand bar at low tide; walking the beach; sailing; building sand castles; building dams; mucking the little creek; kayaking; rowing; crabbing; walking on the breakwater to the outer light; running over the causeway between the Flounder and the Maggie P.; golfing; catching and skinning eel; eating ice cream and cookies and cake and crab and eel and Chinese and pizza and chips and soda and cold cuts and pumpkin bread and Omaha Steaks and laeckerli and oreos and dark chocolate M&M’s and and and; playing games (Quiddler, Blokus, Mille Bornes, Perspective, quadruple solitaire, Set, My Word, Apples to Apples, In a Pickle, Texas Hold ‘em, Rummikub, Settlers of Catan, Ringgz, but sadly not krypto or Boggle); lounging on the deck of the Maggie P. and under the cabana, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; sleeping; playing with nephews/grand kids; playing with dry ice in the creek; and more I’m sure I’m missing. Here are some of the highlights in pictures.
What's so interesting? Dry ice!
Playing on the sandbar
Playing card games in the Maggie P.
Noah crawls on the deck
Jimmy, the breakwater and the outer lighthouse
On our walk to the outer light we were lucky enough to witness the start of a cigarette boat race.
Cousin B and me with the lighthouse. Click on the picture to see B's great smile.
Like Aunt like nephew. I think Jonathan looks darling in his new do.
The Harry Potter reading room. That's three copies and a neglected son. j/k ;)
I love my family and my family loves me.
View from the beach of the crowd hanging out at the Maggie P.
One of the more exciting events of the weekend was catching two large eels and skinning them for dinner. I grew up loving this Maggie P. tradition but the last five or so years we’ve been having trouble catching eels because of diminishing supply. One theory is that the Japanese are catching so much baby eel for their delicate tastes that not enough young eels can make it to the coast to grow up and become eel for us. Thus I had such horror in Japan when I realized the sushi I’d just tried was about 20 baby eels wrapped in seaweed. Whatever the reason, we were lucky enough this year to catch two of the largest eels I’d ever seen. I was designated the official photographer of the event and I think I got some great photos and videos. The eel got eaten up before I could get a picture of the finished project. Yum, yum. Enjoy!
Aunt Prudence works on one eel while Cousin B and Jonathan watch the other eel in the pot.
Jonathan asks a question.
2007-07-29 Maggie P. eel, cut head off so we can eat.mpg
How to skin an eel.
2007-07-29 Maggie P. eel, ripping out intestine.mpg
2007-07-29 Maggie P. eel, skinning.mpg
Second eel in the pot and what he will soon look like.
2007-07-29 Maggie P. eel, and his fate.mpg
Cousin K tries his hand at skinning an eel.
2007-07-29 Maggie P. eel, K grabs eel.mpg
K didn't flinch as the eel wrapped itself around his arm.
Jon can't wait for the eel to be cooked.
K and Jonathan and the Aquillo in the background.
K skins his eel.
Cleaning the eels in the creek.
A job well done.
Poor eel. An easy meal for the seagulls.
Wow, someone got my picture while reading Harry Potter. I didn't even realize. I'm such a smuck. No one got pictures of the frisbee throwing though.
How does that make you a smuck? We all read Harry Potter. . .
I'm pretty sure we got pictures of the Frisbee throwing, but they may not have made the cut for being posted because they were all taken from a distance (the primary photographer being busy actually throwing the Frisbee), and so it's hard to tell who's who.
