Visit to ‘the trawlers’ on the Gold Coast

y sister Annie will be on her feet for four hours shelling these ‘red beauties’ from the sea – my favourite Spanner crabs. Years of expertise using the back of a teaspoon to get into even the smallest claws to extract the sweetest meat for her brother Michael to savour.

Trevor had me out of bed early to go to the trawlers to get the spanner crabs

Trevor had me out of bed at ‘sparrow fart’ this morning after he had checked the Internet and saw that the trawlers had returned to the Broadwater from dragging their sleds along the ocean floor to collect the sand-dwelling Spanner crabs, despite the storms.

This is part of an ongoing ritual started by my mother when I lived in London and would visit her in Brisbane. Connie would buy me a crab and crack it with a hammer on the back steps as my treat for coming home.

Thank you Anne and Trevor. I hope you know that I would still come to visit, even if there were no fresh crab sprinkled with malt vinegar on fresh white bread.

ix years ago, after returning from the trawlers, I filmed Annie shelling the spanner crabs.