Whatever you do don't fall asleep.

We got back last night from a short family jaunt to the Oregon Coast where we stayed at a rental house. The weather was perfect and we had a terrific time.

We had a bunch of relatives from around the country staying with us so I did my favorite thing to do when we've got land-lubbers with us; take them out on the bay crabbing. I've been going to the Wheeler Marina in Wheeler on the Nehalem Bay since I was eighteen. Really inexpensive boat rentals and you always fill up a cooler with Dungeoness crab.

It's about a half-hour boat ride out to the inlet of the bay where the crabbing is good. The area is beautiful. Lots of wildlife. We saw several types of firds including stork. I haven't been out where we weren't checked out by seal or two.

Crabbing is pretty easy. You wire a frozen fish head to the bottom of a ring and then toss it off the boat just about where you think the crab might congregate. Then you just go from ring to ring quickly pulling the rings to the boat so the crab can't jump off. In practice this means you have lots of little crabs running around your boat. This is the part I love because it usually means people who've never picked up a live crab are screaming in terror.

Back at the house we had a crab feast capped by watching the sunset on the beach and hot-tubbing under the stars. It's times like this I love being an Oregonian.