Boats, Cats and Crayfish!

Sorry that this is a tad late, I seem to be saying that a lot lately...

Today Rob and I took ourselves off to lunch. The reason being that we met eighteen years ago, on the 19 February 1998 to be precise!! Mutual friends decided that we 'deserved each other' (we are still trying to work that out...) and finally managed to get us in the same place at the same time. It has been a wonderful eighteen years with Rob, and hopefully we shall celebrate a lot more years together before we shuffle off this mortal coil.

So, off we went to Paternoster to a fabulous restaurant that is literally on the beach. Called 'Voorstrandt Restaurant'  (it really does mean on the beach), it is a bright green and red corrugated iron building that serves some of the best seafood around!

Voorstrandt Restaurant.

While we were there we watched at least fifteen fishing boats race to shore and our waiter told us that they were offloading crayfish! Closely watched by the fisheries men I might add. Each boat was being followed by a cloud of gulls fighting and squabbling over the debris that was being thrown over the sides as the crayfish were being cleaned ready for sale.

Somewhere out there are fishing boats!!!!! Our view from the restaurant.

The sea was a calm, flat line, the beach was clean and empty with a few dogs racing up and down on the sand and it reminded us of the first time we drove into Paternoster, many years ago now. The beach stretches for a good few kilometres and the wind blew my straw sun-hat off my head, onto its brim and sent it bowling along the sand with me in hot pursuit! Right past the restaurant! Once I had retrieved it, we sauntered back with me trying not to pant, and had our first taste of their delicious meals.

Crayfish being offloaded.

Anyway, today, once we had completed our meal, we drove to the beach where the boats were by now empty and lolling around on the sand, waiting patiently until they head out again tomorrow.

And the reason we are not waiting until Friday to celebrate? Well, I am a granny, and grannies babysit.

Tomorrow I am driving to Catherine and Stuart as they are going away for the weekend.

So I shall be 'babysitting' the three littlies.......William, Harry and Jemima.

Jemima is the tabby. William is behind.....or is it Harry?

Their much loved and well travelled cats!

And then I shall stay on for a few days after they return to 'kuier' properly!

Jasus Ialandii or West Coast Gold!

When people think of the West Coast, the word ‘crayfish’ springs to mind. This, in turn, conjures up mental images of happy, bronzed tourists lounging on the beach sipping wine while someone ‘chucks another prawn on the barbie.’ Am I right? Every tourist blub mentions the wonderful seafood, especially crayfish, which abound in our coastal waters.

Perfectly braaied

West Coast Gold! (Pics thanks to Google)

And they do. Abound I mean. But there are rules and regulations that prevent you from simply wading into the water with your net and scooping a few to serve with savoury rice, mayonnaise and subtly flavoured garlic butter for lunch. Before you head out to sea in a correctly licensed boat to catch your legal quota of 4 crayfish per day, you must first have a permit which last season cost R92. Also, crayfish can only be caught in season (usually mid November to end of March) and between the hours of 08:00 and 16:00, not before and never after. If you don’t have a correctly licensed boat, well, you can ring-net or scoop-net from the shore. No diving from a boat and no oxygen tanks are allowed, but a snorkel is ok! All simple so far and easy to follow. But, here is the tricky part, read below: