Clam Crazy!

Here some photos of our recent clamming trip to Birch Bay....about a month ago...maybe longer...can't keep track anymore! I can't believe it's already the end of June!! Sigh...Time is going by way to fast.!! I feel like the summer is gonna be over soon!! NOOOOO!
Anyways, we went with a group of friends who had timeshare (thanks Terri!) at Birch Bay and so we all went to do some clamming. It's been a long time since I've been clamming, and it was Dylan's first time. (and might be the last...you'll find out why)
The first day of digging was in the late afternoon soon after we arrived. We were all digging around finding a few here and there....and I was honestly getting a little discouraged since all I found were tiny clams or big shells with nothing inside. Talk about lame....no one likes stupid big empty clams!
But then after about an hour or so, Christine and Nick totally found the money spot where we were getting handful of clams at a time! Booh-Yah!
As we dug and dug, the tide was also coming in closer and faster! So 2 of us had to build a sand barrier to block as much water out while the others were literally on their hands and knees in the water frantically digging.
Check it out! Dylan actually captured this scene with his manual camera! It was totally exciting to have found the spot with so many clams. I can only imagine what it would be like if it was actually gold... All that excitement and adrenaline rush! Hmm...that doesn't say too much about my life, huh?
We cooked up a whole bowl of these babies and sauteed them in garlic, leek, and white wine, and it smelled amazing!! Finally at 10 pm, we made our dinner along with salads, and other side dishes. We were all looking forward to be rewarded with some fresh cooked clams that we all worked so hard for. We all went for the clams...tasted them...chew chew..CRUNCH!
There was still sand inside!! We try to rinse them out as much as we could, but some of the clams still had a lot of sand inside...really not the type of texture I was expecting.
They would of tasted amazing if they weren't so sandy!!....I suppose we should of soaked them longer. :(
But then on top of that, the very next day Dylan got some sort of flu or food poisoning...where he had horrible stomach pain and ended up staying inside for the majority of the day...puking up all the clams...and CLAM SAND!....sorry, TMI! But yeah...not super pleasant for him. So I think Dylan's gonna stay away from clams for awhile now...
On the last day, we got to check out Lummi Island on the way back to Seattle. It's a lovely little island that we took a tiny ferry to get to. We all got to just hang out by this beach and enjoy a lovely picnic.
It was a quiet and fairly secluded beach with beautiful shore line. The entire beach is covered in round pebbles and rocks of all colors and sizes and we spent hours searching and collecting a bunch of rocks.....weighing ourselves down more and more as we went. The shore line was so beautiful with dramatic rock formations and interesting sea life! I love seeing all the patterns, textures, and colors in nature....It's so surreal! Also took some polaroids!
We had a great time though (minus sandy clams and Dylan throwing up...). Thanks Terri and Chris, Christine and Nick for the great weekend!
Here's us trying to take a polaroid of ourselves...it's harder than it looks! You can just see the struggle on his face trying to take the photo and smile at the same time. Men...they just don't know how to multitask do they?
See rest of the photos, here.