Day two in Cockle. Up to see the sun again so school was shelved in favour of snorkelling and oyster searching in the creek. The weather was supposed to turn nasty later on, so we thought we should make the most of it. Well, have to say that I much prefer the gathering side of the hunter gatherer existence. We ended up with a bucket groaning with huge pacific oysters and shiny plump cockles fresh as you like from the most possibly the most untouched water in the world. We also saw little flounders scooting away from us as we roamed the sandy bottom and the boys had a brilliant time waging a make believe war against the drifts of blue mud crabs that haunted the shoals.
Back to camp to ponder how to cook our bounty. A small memory springs to mind at this point of my mother trying to cook a giant crab that Dad had caught down the beach in Chapel Porth in Cornwall during one of our annual holidays. For those that were there, I think thats all I need to say. For the majority of the rest of you, let's just say that the crab in question was most active in its opinion that boiling it alive in a pot slightly too small was not the way to go. All I remember is mum shrieking as she was trying to push the lid back on the pot and seeing pairs of determined claws forcing the lid off in different places. Poor thing. We did eat it in the end though..
Anyway, fortunately for us and unfortunately for the shellfish here, they were unable to exercise any opinion regarding their demise and we opened them on a wire grill over the fire and then ate them in spaghetti marianara. Yum.
School was done in the end and the weather held long enough for us to have a good fire, cook some scones and some sticky bun and pack up most of our gear ready for an early start in the morning. Next stop, Bruny Island!