One year it's new pickup trucks, but the next it could be food stamps. And every season, it is a schedule of thrills, danger, sleepless nights and worried families. This is the life of a crabber.
Crabbers can celebrate the end of a tremendous 2009-10 season. So can all the rest of us who rely on them for delicious seafood and millions of dollars in economic activity.
Oregon crabbers from the Columbia River to the California line may have brought in a whopping 25 million pounds of Dungeness before the season ended Sunday night. That is a heck of a lot of crab cakes. It is also a heck of a lot of sweaty labor. There are a great many crabbers who dearly love the whole enchilada of motoring out of port long before first light to work the pots in the clean ocean air. But rewards notwithstanding, there's no denying that it is a grueling job.
The total value of this season's crab to the fleet will approach $45 million. These are precious locally created dollars that bounce around a lot, creating economic opportunities for everyone on the coast. It's estimated that every crab dollar creates another $2 in the form of everything from purchased fuel, to school supplies, to those aforementioned and much-deserved shiny Ford pickups.
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