Back To the Small Fishing Village In 1982 - Chapter 47

Chapter 47: The Abundant Resources on the Lonely Island

He continued walking around the area and discovered another blue crab buried in the soil nearby, with only its eyes exposed.

“Each one is better at hiding than the last!”

Fortunately, his eyesight was good and sharp. When he picked it up with the tongs, he saw that this one was slightly smaller, but still over a pound. It was male – not bad at all!

After putting the blue crab into his bamboo basket, he searched more carefully, worried that he might miss something hidden under the mud.

Wherever there were rocks, he would deliberately move them to check if there was anything underneath.

But this area he was searching was a tidal flat without much water. After turning over several rocks, he didn’t see any stranded small fish or shrimp. Still, he wasn’t discouraged and continued searching patiently – after all, there was plenty of time right after the tide had gone out.

After moving several rocks, he finally spotted two large blue crabs stacked on top of each other beside a big rock!

“Damn, having a wild encounter, aren’t you two something!”

When he grabbed one with the tongs, the other was still attached on top. Looking at their backs, they were indeed a male and female pair.

They were all blue crabs. Ye Yaodong figured that because this was a lonely island with no human activity or threats, the crabs would crawl onto the tidal flats to relax and sunbathe after the tide went out, returning to the sea with the next high tide.

Excited after collecting these two crabs, he spotted a small flat tidal area not far ahead, with many small holes on the surface.

He walked quickly forward and squatted down. Unlike the holes in the beach sand which contained clams, based on his experience, these holes should contain razor clams.

Razor clams are a type of invertebrate mollusk commonly found in intertidal muddy sand. They have narrow, long razor-shaped shells and can move quickly up and down in their burrows, retreating rapidly when startled.

He muttered to himself: “Too bad I didn’t bring any salt. Otherwise, I could sprinkle some in these holes and the razor clams would come out by themselves. Now I have to dig them out manually – what a hassle!”

Setting aside his fire tongs, he started digging into the holes with his bare hands. Fortunately, they weren’t too deep and were fairly easy to dig out.

After digging up a few, he noticed a rock nearby. He moved it aside and found two mudskippers, which he tossed into his bamboo basket.

Even small catches count as meat – at least it’s something.

After efficiently digging for about fifteen minutes and emptying all the holes in this patch, he estimated he had collected about three to four pounds. He stood up satisfied.

But squatting for so long had made his neck sore. His hands were too dirty to massage it, so Ye Yaodong could only twist his neck while glancing over at the others.

Everyone was quite spread out, and he wondered how their harvest was going.

Looking up at the sun again, the sunlight was still intensely bright. Seeing that it was still early and the tide wouldn’t rise soon, he could only continue searching, occasionally picking up mudskippers.

He walked further and further out, leaving the small tidal flat and reaching an area with shallow water and sandy mud.

Just as he stepped into the seawater, Ye Yaodong sat on a large rock, planning to wash the mud off his legs first. The mud stuck to his legs had dried in the sun, making his skin feel tight and uncomfortable.

Just after washing his feet, he saw an antenna extend out from under a rock crevice.

“Walking right into my trap, aren’t you! Come out,” he put on his gloves, reached in and grabbed, “Oh~ it’s a small white octopus!”

After tossing it into his basket, he continued feeling around under the rock, “There’s more!”

When he pulled them out, there were two more small white octopuses!

There’s a Fujian saying: “Three small white octopuses are worth one sheep!”

While other octopuses are sold by weight, small white octopuses are sold by the piece!

“Got myself a sheep’s worth!”

The resources on the lonely island were indeed more abundant than at the dock. Walking around this rock, he also spotted several whelks.

Not many, just seven or eight, with their meat attached to the top of the rocks. He pried them off one by one and tossed them into his hand.

Only snails attached to rocks would have meat inside – those floating in seawater often contained hermit crabs instead of meat.

Since he was already in the shallow water area, he decided to look around the vicinity.

“Ah, a rockfish…”

Seeing red movement among the pile of rocks, Ye Yaodong quickly walked over – it was a rockfish.

Rockfish typically live in rocky crevices or caves in marine areas. They seem inseparable from rocks – no matter how deep the water, there must be rocks at the bottom for rockfish to appear and live there, feeding on small shrimp at the bottom.

He set his basket and tongs aside to free both hands, surrounding and catching it carefully, as its fin spines were poisonous and required caution.

The bright red rockfish was pleasing to look at, much prettier than ordinary fish.

Ye Yaodong was in a good mood – whether valuable or not, any harvest was cause for joy.

After that, the catches became fewer. Until the tide started rising, he only caught three rockfish – just enough for one bowl – along with some mudskippers, stone crabs, a few miscellaneous fish, and three large blue crabs.

Wading through the water, he walked back towards the reef where they had landed. The others were still hunched over searching nearby. Ye Yaodong called out loudly to them: “The tide’s rising!”

Everyone looked up briefly in the direction of his voice before continuing to look down – yes, the tide was starting to rise, but it hadn’t risen much yet, and the boat was still beached on the sand, so what’s the hurry.

When he got closer, he called out again, “Aren’t you all hungry?”

“How could we not be hungry? We’re starving flat.”

“I’ve already eaten several raw shrimp.”

He hadn’t noticed until they mentioned it, but he hadn’t found any shrimp in his catch today. “I didn’t find any shrimp.”

“Then what did you find?”

“Three small white octopuses, three rockfish, several stone crabs, some miscellaneous snails, three to four pounds of razor clams, seven large blue crabs…”

“Damn, you found seven large blue crabs? How big are they?” Xiaoxiao, who was closest to him, looked at him incredulously.

“All over a pound, the biggest one’s probably close to two pounds!”

He had found the biggest one under a rock in the shallow water area when he was walking back – fortunately he spotted it, otherwise it would have returned to the sea when the tide rose.

A-Zheng enviously complained: “What kind of luck do you have? Three to four pounds of razor clams is one thing, but you even found seven large blue crabs? I only found one.”

“I found one too! It’s quite big, should be about one and a third pounds,” Chen Wei walked over and said.

“Feels like there are quite a lot of blue crabs here. Maybe it’s because it’s an isolated island and fishing nets can’t reach this area, so there’s still plenty of catch.”

“I think so too, probably because no one has visited here before,” Xiaoxiao said while glancing at Ye Yaodong’s bamboo basket, “Yours is completely full.”

“Dong-zi has had really good luck these past few days! In the same spots, he always gets more than us.”