June has ushered in a whole new hunting experience for me. This all started after a late night party ended. We were toasted so my non-drinking neighbor was handlin the wheel. Me and my partner in crime were deep in a conversation about some song that was played at the party. That's when we noticed a giant crab creeping across the street. We hollered at the driver to stop so we could inspect and somehow this inspection turned into a capture when I hollered "get em!" it's crazy how the mob mentality kicks in without question once you toss back a few. Either way we rustled the crab into a bucket and tossed it in the trunk. We were on our merry way and discussing how he could be bait, or if it was edible. Needless to say we forgot the crab in the trunk and did not remember until late the next day. The same accomplice from the capture was sitting in the car as I ran back in my room to grab my MP3 player. When I came back he was yapping about an iguana climbing on the car or under it. I got out and looked around the car and didn't see anything so he explained that something was scratchin around on the side of the car. That's when it clicked...THE CRAB!!! We stepped around the back of the car like we had a mobster in the trunk and slowly lifted the lid. Those crabs are much faster and stronger than they appear. We slowly lifted the lid and stared around tentatively. No crab in sight! So we poked around slowly in the trunk. Still no crab! At this point I thought my buddy was drunker than I thought that night and still may have been feeling the effects so I dismissed the whole thing with the idea that he probably dropped the crab before it made it in the trunk, and he just was trippin in the car. Well...a week later I heard some scratching in the car and I know I was not trippin or drinkin. I popped the trunk again and then looked through the whole car thoroughly. Still no crab! Now we were both trippin and talking about the ghost Houdini crab that escaped from the trunk. Looking closely there were a few spots where the crab could have pushed through into the car. The next day as I drove from work the crab crawled sideways from under the seat with both claws up and waiving menacing peace signs at me. I almost sh!t myself. These crabs are not the nicest looking crabs in the world and they also bear a very close resemblance to alien robot spiders. It is hot as hell in Cuba and even hotter in my closed car. These crabs are tough as hell!! I looked these crabs up and found out they are edible and the only thing I need to do is feed them cornmeal and fruit for about a week to purge out all the crap they've eaten prior. They are actually a big food item in St John. So the hunt was on... we found out they freeze in place when you shine a bright light on them and the male crabs have a giant pincher that they use to fight and flip other males. The females are the really pinchy ones. That giant claw is more for show than purpose, they actually slow the males down a lot. But the females have two smaller claws that they weld with the dexterity of a shaolin ninja. We decided to do drive by body snatchin missions on a particularly rainy night. We'd spot em from the car, hop out with a towel and a bucket. The easiest way to catch em was to toss the towel on the big claw and grab the crab from behind while keeping the claws occupied with the towel. We got more than a few dirty looks from passing drivers. The natives always laugh at us mainlanders. I didn't care. Now I have a cooler full of crabs that are strong and noisy as hell. They sh!t all over the place and I have to dip them in water at least once every two days so they can hydrate their gills. It seems as if they all syncronize escape efforts at midnight every night. I'll be sleep then I'd see claws and legs reaching out through the makeshift cage I made to go over the cooler. They make sooooooo much noise! It sounds like a 6 pack decided to do squat thrusts in my cooler. I'm thinking about making a pen outside for these guys...I utilized my CRABHAWK again and caught up a whole mess of blue crabs. I added the pic but they went straight to the pot after that shot. I can't wait until this weekend. I'm going to cook up their land cousins and report on the flavor...
