People of the Crab
“He’s being modest,” says Baird. “He was doing this while he was up to his neck in water.”
Anyway, the Coast Guard towed them back to Fort Bragg.
Baird’s splicing a rope, listening, his hazel eyes serious. He starts talking about home — in Weaverville. He and his wife, who works in Redding, live in a straw bale house Baird built several years ago. “Two-foot-thick walls,” he says. “The first thing I ever built of my own. Passive solar.”
Then he gets to what’s troubling him. When it’s crabbing season — or salmon in the summer — he’s not there. He sleeps on his boat in Eureka, and goes home on weekends if he can. “My wife is getting tired of it,” he says. “She’s not happy.”
Over on another crabber’s boat, a blue heron stands folded and contained, stiffly at attention. It looks stuck. Or indecisive. Probably it’s just resting.
Up the main dock, inside the Café Marina, bartender Sarah Henderson tends to a lone, white-haired customer. Now and then, she looks out at the bay. Her long, dark hair is pulled back and big, shiny red reindeer earrings dangle at her cheeks. Her eyes are kind — she listens a lot. Crabbers will sometimes tell her where they found a sugar hole, where the crabs are plentiful. She never passes it on — and she’s only heard of one, this year. It’s been tough, starting with the windstorm the night of the season opener. A lot of crab pots turned upside-down, or disappeared. Now, with the crab already about half fished out, a lot of boats are coming into port to wait out even the hint of a storm. As the saying goes down here by the water, there’s a fine line between tough and dumb. Good crabbing, bad weather be damned. Bad crabbing — well, it’s not worth the risk.
“They’re really good men,” says Henderson. “They’re even-tempered. They’re the last of the adventurers. It’s like they’re the last cowboys. They’re out there for days, and you feel sorry for some of them because relationships are really strained because they’re out there so long. I hear a lot of stories about wives who have left. And I don’t think a lot of ‘em’s got wives. It’s a tough life.”
Trinidad
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on the cover
Railroad!
Proposed lines ‘set rich blood a-tingling’ in early 1900s
Some Other Proposed North Coast Railroads
Choo-choo Fantasies
Exposing this east-west rail nonsense
seven-o-heaven
Undeterred Will
Will chides Andrew for lack of attention to detail and makes plans for his inevitable victory.
Recent on the cover
May 17
Ring of Fire
Sun and moon will perform a rare pas de deux in Humboldt skies on Sunday
May 10
District Soup
Racing for the top county seat in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd districts
May 3
A Place in the Woods
As park closure deadline nears, a scramble to save what we can
Today
44th Annual Kinetic Grand Championship Race
STAFF PICK / events, art, outdoors, sports, for kids, free / 9 a.m.-6 p.m. A 3-day, 42-mile kinetic sculpture race over land, sand, mud and water! LeMans start at the Noon Whistle on the Arcata Plaza. Follow the race through Manila, Eureka and into Ferndale on Memorial Day for the Glorious Finish. kineticgrandchampionship.com. 889-3024.
Flow 2012 Fashion Show
STAFF PICK / events / 8 p.m. Arcata Theatre Lounge, 1036 G St. Student designed and produced clothing. Fundraiser for Arcata Arts Institute. $35/$25 students. artsinstitute.net. 822-1220.
Woodside Preschool's Rummage/Bake Sale
events / 8 a.m.-noon. Woodside Preschool, 900 Hodgson St, Eureka. www.woodsidepreschool.com. 445-9132.
Lanphere Dunes Restoration
STAFF PICK / outdoors / 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Meet at Pacific Union School. Help remove non-native invasives at the Lanphere Dunes Unit of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Tools and gloves provided, wear work clothes and bring water. Carpool to the protected site. 444-1397.
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