Wells Blakeny Seals and Crabbing

Boat ride to see the seals

Parker on the beach

Broden in "Baywatch"

Looking for crabs

Crab legs

Remi holding the hermit crab they found

Parker enjoying the sand

Boats beached at low tide in Wells

 Saturday September 10^th we left about 9:00 am and headed north again. We drove straight to Wells-Next-the-Sea and bought some crabbing stuff. We spent like 5 pounds on 2 nets, some bait and a bucket.  Where we were crabbing was at a little inlet from the Ocean. The tide was out so there was like a 15 foot drop to where there was about 2 feet of water. There was a rail to keep the kids away from the edge, but within the first 5 minutes we almost lost 2 shoes, a stuff` puppy, one of the nets and we did lose the bucket into the water. Luckily it was windy and the bucket blew over to a muddy bank by a ladder. I climbed down the ladder and walked through the slippery mud and retrieved the bucket. An older couple even applauded my success! Then the man grabbed the bucket so I could climb the ladder. We tried the crabbing for about half an hour with no luck. We did see a good sized crab and tried to get him to grab our net, but he wasn’t interested.

Eventually we got in the freezing water

After crabbing we headed out to the beach. There was a path from the inlet all the way out to the beach. Because the tide was out it was a REALLY BIG beach. We actually didn’t even see the ocean. It was like rolling sand dunes that were wet, with a little stream going through the valley. We did play there for a while though. The kids started out just collecting shells. Then they were making a home for the baby crab Broden found. They dug in the puddles and made paths for the water to fill up their channels. Eventually they were getting a little wet in the puddles, but by the end they were full on playing in the water. They had so much fun. We took off Parker’s clothes and let him just wear his diaper. He even enjoyed crawling into the freezing cold water.

Eventually we decided one of us better walk back to get the car and come pick up everyone else.  We didn’t have an extra diaper for Parker, or any towels. We did have some jackets though. So we stripped him naked and rinsed off the sand the best we could with out making him scream too bad from the cold water. Then we wrapped him in Remi’s pink jacket and I walked back with him. He looked pretty cute in the pink jacket. I did stop every couple minutes to make sure he hadn’t peed or that his little pee pee wasn’t hanging out. That would probably look pretty funny to the oncoming walkers. A little girl, wrapped in a pink jacket spread eagle, oh wait, it’s a boy. We made it to the car and he hadn’t peed! I got him into a clean diaper and back into his clothes. Then we went to pick up Blake and the kids. Luckily we had an extra set of clothes for everyone. So we took them into the bathroom and rinsed off and got dressed.

We ate Peanut butter and honey sandwiches on our drive to Blakeney. I think the kids were starving. We had eaten breakfast at 7:30 and they only had a couple pretzels and it was 1:45 when we ate. Remi and Broden each had 2 whole sandwiches and Alissa 1 and a half. When we got to Blakeney we saw the person we needed to purchase the tickets for our boat ride from. She was right next to a “car park.” All the car parks are pay and display. So Blake went to pay for parking and buy our boat tickets while I got the stroller, kids, snacks, jackets and anything else we might need all ready to go. He came back with the news that he had paid for a days worth of parking, only to find out when he bought our tickets that the boat actually departed from an inlet about 5 miles up the coast. Luckily Blake caught someone just before they paid for their parking ticket and they just paid him for ours. 

Blake in front of his sign

Seals on the island

And his hotel

The little village of Blakeney was really cute. We were only there for about half an hour, but we took pictures and I even saw a few people catching crabs. We left there and drove to the place where the boats depart. When we got there I think there were only about 15 cars in the huge car park. It was about 2:30. We parked and walked around. It was like a little ghost town or a ghost boat dock I guess. There were a bunch of docks where our car was parked, then a trail that went away from the parking lot and there were a bunch more docks. I could tell we weren’t in the US because all the docks were really old, with no safety features. They had something to hold on to sometimes, but there was like a 15 foot drop to the ground. The tide was still out when we got there. We had hoped to try crabbing again, but there wasn’t enough water. There was only like 6 inches. We walked around for a while then went back by the car. The kids were playing on one of the docks while we were getting things ready, again. Broden walked around the side of the car with a panicked/guilty look in his eyes. I asked him what was wrong and he said,” I was playing Remi’s game and my shoe came off.” I realized his shoe had fallen through one of the cracks in the dock and was under the dock. Luckily it wasn’t too far down in the mud. I stepped on some rocks and held on to the mossy dock and used my flip flop to reach his shoe under the dock. 

Alissa playing on the scary docks

After that we decided we better put everyone In their tennis shoes and socks so we wouldn’t lose any more shoes.  We headed to the bathroom then went back down the trail to the docks. By this time it was 4:10 and the parking lots were all PACKED! There were tons of people all getting ready to board the boats. It was amazing to watch the tide come in. We all watched a big piece of sea weed that was about 4 feet from the water. Within about 15 minutes the water had reached it. Then by 4:35 we were loading onto the boats that just 1 hour earlier had been beached with no water near them. We heard when the tide is out it is about 5 miles out!

Remi and Broden waiting for the tide to come in

This seal came over to say hi

We crammed onto a boat with about 50 other people and headed down the channel to the ocean/sea. We were headed to see the seals. It was fun seeing all the different boats that were anchored all over in the channel. After about 15 minutes we were out into the ocean and came to a couple islands that had hundreds of seals all over them. It was amazing. They had just had their pups about 3 weeks ago, so there were some little seal pups. Some of the seals were swimming and playing in the water. Most of them were lounging around the beach. We drove back and forth by one island a couple times then went to another island and watched some more for a while. The kids loved it. Remi has always loves seals, so it was fun to see them in their natural habitat out in the middle of the ocean. Then we went back up the channel and they dropped us off at the dock closer to the cars because the water was so much higher. The kids loved the seals and also loved getting splashed by the water every time we hit a wave.

 

When we got back to our car we decided we wanted to go back to Wells to try crabbing again. We used our first “car park” pass and parked right by the crabbing place. Alissa and Parker were both asleep so we just took Remi and Broden. We threw in our nets and let them drop to the bottom. It was now 15 feet of water. We would wait about 3-5 minutes and pull them up. There would be crabs in the net and hanging on to the bottom. We put them into our bucket and dropped in the net again and again. It was so much fun and so much easier than fishing. I used the same bate on Remi’s net the whole time. We just used little pieces of raw bacon. We drew quite the audience. There was a family from the Phillipines that walked by and Broden was happy to show them all the crabs. They were very intrigued by the crabbing. So we let them try and they loved it. I think they hung out with us for like half an hour.

Broden loved showing and telling anyone that walked by our crabs. There was an older couple in their car right by where we were crabbing. Broden went over to their car window to show them the crab. Then there were 2 ladies who had been on the seal boat with us. They also came to Wells to try crabbing. Broden went over by them and “helped” them crab for a while too. He would tell them where to throw their net and how long to leave it in. He was quite the entertainer. Remi got brave and would hold the crabs. She would get so upset when they would hang from the bottom of the net and drop off before we got them over the bucket. Sometimes she would grab them off the ground before they could make a break for the water.

Eventually it got Parker and Alissa woke up, it got dark and we decided we better eat some dinner. We walked across the street to French’s Fish and Chips which was highly recommended by the other “crabbers.” Blake and I split a large cod and chips and we got chicken nuggets for the kids and a long awaited pineapple fritter for Broden. Finally at 8:30 PM we headed home.

I absolutely love going on trips like this with our family. Yes, 4 little kids can be a little crazy when we do things like this and yes, people look at us like we are crazy sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. When we are together as a family we have so much fun. The kids play together and get along(for the most part) and we are just happy. It makes me so grateful to be a mom to these 4 happy kids and the wife to an amazing man who is willing to take us on these fun adventures. We are excited to have many, many more in the next few years, and forever!!!