Survivor Girl Lives off the Land

When Sean, Kaia, Hugo and I boated to a beach the locals call Gravel Bay to dig clams and pick oysters, Kaia and Hugo went exploring with me right behind. Sean went right to work picking oysters and digging clams while we splashed in the stream and explored the beach.

I asked Kaia if the stream was fresh or salt water. She wasn’t sure, so I said there were a couple of easy ways to tell. Number one was that Hugo was drinking the water. Not that he’s all that good proof because he does drink salt water occasionally.

Kaia tasted it and declared it was ‘Fresh!’

I asked her if we could survive here. After tromping up and down the creek in her crocs, enjoying the cold water and splashing, she agreed to be survivor girl in a ‘movie’.

I started to video her but she lost interest when I asked her questions and she realized she was ‘on camera’, finally saying, ‘Grandma, I’m finished playing survivor girl.’ so we went back to see how Sean was doing digging clams.

Clam digging is like searching for buried treasure. Usually one rake of the trowel and we uncover half a dozen clams! It’s definitely fun, but only if you are taking your limit of 75 per person. And yes, you must have a license.

The clams and oysters were plentiful and we carefully counted out our limit. Back at the dock we put the clams in an old onion sack and hung them from the dock into the water to wash off the sand and grit.

Sean went to work on the oysters and actually enjoyed shucking them and was surprised at how easy it was. Grandpa showed him exactly where to insert the knife, which releases the muscle and the shell pops open. Sean remembered years gone by when his dad and other ‘grownup’s made a big deal of the ‘work’ of shucking oysters, and felt rather superior when he did them all in about 45 minutes!