“I hear there are clams up that river”, said Steve who was cruising on his boat from Gig Harbor, Washington. “That’s right’ piped in his wife. “I read in the cruising guide, there is a small creek heading north from that beach that has lots of clams. We just need some buckets and something to shovel with.” The idea sounded great to us. A little land excursion is always good when you are living on a boat.
Beaching the dinghy
We had arrived in Bahia Santa Maria the day before. We had had an uneventful sail from Turtle Bay, where we had stopped for fuel. On board with us since San Francisco, was our friend from Australia, Bob White (affectionately know as Whitey 2). Our friends from the Bay Area, Cathy and Roger, were anchored near by on their boat. Anchored not too far from them, were Steve and Kay. It was a beautiful anchorage. A large bay with a long curved beach at the north end.
Max collecting clams
We were all up to go exploring and see if we could find these clams. Whitey said lets rendezvous at 4 pm and we will dinghy ashore. Looking back we all wonder why we thought it was a good idea to go so late in the day. It was early December, and it would be getting dark by 5 or 5:30 pm. But everyone seemed to think that Whitey’s time suggestion was great.
Digging for clams
We all loaded into our tender which we affectionately called ‘Sequel’ and motored to the beach. Everyone helped in pulling it as far up the beach as possible, grabbed the buckets and whatever we had found to use as shovels. We easily located the shallow waterway that went inland from the ocean. It was really a creek or river, just a shallow run off from somewhere. We followed along it until we were well inland. It was a bit swampy with some grass growing around but very clean water. Now it was getting dark but as the always prepared boaters that we are, we all had flashlights. So we stomped along in the shallow water, sinking in the sand but at least we could see. Finally, someone said lets just stop and see if they are around here. Standing in 2-6 inches of water we began to dig. At first there was nothing, so we dug a little deeper. Suddenly everyone was coming up with clams, lots of clams to fill all of the buckets. They were about 3 inches in diameter and someone thought they were called chocolate clams. Everyone was elated as we happily filled our buckets to the brim. But it was dark now and we had to make our way back to the dinghy.
Cathy and Bob
The return trip was another adventure and this time with heavy buckets of clams. Luckily the navigators in us were able to determine which direction we had come from and make a reciprocal trip. And even though it was now dark, we could somewhat follow the little creek. If memory serves me correctly there were at least a few of us getting grumpy over this adventurous mollusc-gathering trek. We were tired and hungry. Finally we came upon the beach and our dinghy.
Roger filling up the bucket
Whitey 2 testing the depth
Kay & Steve’s boat, ‘Kavenga’, was the gathering place for our feed. Everyone made the decision to just boil up a pot full, open them up and eat with lime and butter. We were all starving and nothing fancy was fine with us. We then divided up the rest of the clams to take to our individual boats. As we were finishing up our dinner someone asked (I don’t recall who it was) ‘why did we go out at night to look for these clams?’ Everyone looked at Whitey, since he was the one that decided on the 4 pm start. Whitey said, in complete seriousness, ‘aren’t they nocturnal?’ The couple from the Pacific Northwest just laughed and said ‘No! How can they be nocturnal when they are in the mud? But we thought you knew what you were doing, Whitey, so went along with it’. Everyone had a great laugh. We just trusted the Australian to know everything about clamming.
