Oyster Harvesting

I did oyster harvesting first time in my life! It was fun. I had yummy oysters. The weather was very cold. You can find some pictures @ http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz/photos/2005/11_nov/03_oystering/

I joined a group of my friends last night to Twanoh State Park, Belfair, WA, which is about 2 hours east of Seattle to harvest oysters. Twanoh State Park, a saltwater beach with camping facilities, is a well-known place for oyster harvesting.

The tide was forcasted to be low last night: wonderful time for picking oysters. Even though the temperature was quite low, the weather was cooperating: clear sky. At least, we didn't need to stay in rain or snow under such low temperature with our shoes wet.

We set off from Seattle about 8:40pm. After one hour ferry, we got to Bremerton. Around 10 o'clock we got to Twanoh State Park. I have to mention the vehicle we used: a school bus. Yes, we took the school bus. No, we didn’t steal the bus. Brendan, a professor at my department, bought the school bus. A nice idea, isn’t it?

After we got ready, we started harvesting oysters. Boy, there are lots of oysters lying on the beach! I haven’t seen sooooo many oysters in my life. It was an oyster field. It seemed like they were waiting for us to pick them up. Of course, oysters don’t move. They live on the rocks, on each other, and with other shell fish. Picked up an oyster, I followed Phil’s instruction (the expert at harvesting oyster in the group) starting harvesting. The shell is hard. An oyster knife is highly recommended for harvesting oysters. The exciting moment was I first time opened an oyster at the oyster harvest field!

Man, it was cold! I wore my wool pants underneath my ski pants. For the top, I had down jacket, in addition to wool sweater. I also wore hat and gloves. I could still feel the cold after half an hour of harvesting.

After midnight, we harvested quite an amount of oysters. We decided to go to the camp ground and started cooking the oysters. Phil, as the activity organizer, also prepared all the cooking tools, equipment, source, and ingredients. Phil was a cook. He is very good at cooking. I heard the rumor that some women proposed to him because he can cook very yummy food.^_^. I think the rumor is true. Oysters in peanut butter soup were delicious. Deep fried oysters with Phil’s home-made source were phenomenal. Everything was paid off after we had the yummy oysters, good drinks, and happy conservations.

Compared the yummy oysters, and the good time we had, sleeping in the tent under cold freezing weather was just nothing. We got back to Seattle this afternoon around 2pm.