Crabbing

It's a well known, pretty acknowledged fact. Clint keeps the gang together. He is the guy "who takes the initiative", like Yagi puts it. He'll call up everyone, say, lets do this or that. Everyone will meet up... that's it, bonding.

I think in every friend circle there is a Clint. Had it not been for him, probably everyone would be doing their own thing.

Clint's just bought a new jeep. It rocks. If I was buying a car, I would go for it with my eyes closed. I've rallied a bit in my gypsy (4/4) - I've done the Raid-de-Himalaya, the Desert Storm - trust me the first time I sat in his Cherokee '98, I could feel its power. The minute Clint stepped on the gas, I was like eeehhaaaaa. Man, this one rocks bigtime.

Day before we set out to see how the car runs on the dunes. We went to Mesaieed, about 40km from Doha. It's a place where you can see a whole load of 4/4s going up and down the dunes. A few foreigners camping. A little further across the dunes, and you can see the Saudi Arabia Border - by far the most dangerous border you'll ever see. Or that's the notion. We didn't go that far though.

Clint was a little scared about, "What if the fucking thing gets stuck here man!" We didn't even really go up a sand hill. Clint just tested it on plain sand.

Anyway it was fun. It's silent out there. Just the dunes, lots of stars, music (a few people play int heir cars while camping) coming from a distance, and the sound of the sea. It's right in front of you, the sea. But it's dark, really dark (at night). You can't really see it, but you know its there. Right there. It's beautiful.

I would just love to lie down with Her on the sand and... nothing. Just, lie down and look up at the flood of stars above.

Then last night, Clint's call again. "We're going crabbing."

Clint, Sam, Kay (Sam's girl), Arun, Yagi, Chris, and me. All of us, after work, at about 9pm, packed into Clint's Cherokee and drove to Wakra, 15 km from Doha.

You know what. Qatar is a geographical wonder. Wakra shore - it's unbelievable. There's water somewhere, sand somewhere, water again. And for a good one kilometer ahead. It's shallow. You can walk as far as you want in the sea. That's where people go crabbing.

With long pointed spikes in your hands, like the primitives looking for their prey, torches and a polythene bag to fill it with crabs.

We walked into the water. Truth be told, I was kinda scared. It's dark, you don't know what's below, jelly fish? Maybe. Crabs, for sure. And crabs bite man. I don't know why, me and Chris were rather surprised, that with so many of them around, all over, how come none of us got snapped. How? Why?

Chris, who like me was crabbing for the first time ever, kept screaming if he felt anything on his feet, even a leaf. He'd scream, and so would I because he was screaming.

It was amazing how many crabs we caught. At least 40. Now that's a good catch.

The technique is to slowly walk in the water with the torch light pointing towards the sea so you can spot the crabs crawling on the sandy bed. Once you spot it, you 'blind it' with the light. Once you hit the light on the crab, it can't see. And then you spike it. It would still be moving once you lift it up to put it in the bag. You just carefully slide it from the pointed ends into the bag.

Sam handed over the spikes to me.

It was fun. I caught about six or seven odd crabs.

I got one thing to buy though - wet shoes. Need them. Can't roam around in those waters in open sandals. Even though none of us got snapped, with wet shoes, you just feel more confident I guess.

Do not ever go barefoot, unless you don't mind stepping on a few of those creatures and hear them go, kkkrrrruuucchchch, underneath your feat.

Sam's taken the crabs home. We're gonna boil them and eat them either today or tomorrow. Depends on what everyone's schedule is.

Fun, isn't it? Small joys. That's life in Qatar. There's time to do all you want to do.

You just gotta meet the right people. Not everyone does.

I got lucky, like always.