Rock pooling, hunter gatherer style

I thought I should tell everyone about yesterdays trip to the seaside because I'm still buzzing about it now. Our French fisherman friend, Stephan, told us that there was going to be a really low tide up on the Cherbourg peninsula looking across the channel to Jersey.

We set off in convoy around mid day, 3 families in 3 cars, for the hour and a half journey. You could tell Stephan had amazing local knowledge as we turned down an unmarked bumpy road, turning at the end onto a sandy track and parking behind a 20 foot high dune. As we climbed over the dune the sea stretched out in front of us and the feint outline of Jersey was visible in the distance. The biggest expanse of sand ever sat between us and the sea where the tide was already going out.

Getting our priorities right, we cracked open a couple of bottles of wine and toasted the occasion before tucking into a picnic. Sandwich in one hand, red wine in the other I started the walk across the beach in the general direction of where the rocks were just starting to emerge. To give you an idea of how far out the tide was, I was walking out for over 10 minutes before catching up with the sea.

I'd left all the others eating their lunch in my mission to get the first decent rock pool find and, after wading out to some rocks just emerging from the sea, I hit the jackpot. There, stranded in a pool, was a fish of reasonable size. I didn't know at the time what it was or that it had a mouth full of teeth that could easily slice through my skin. I knelt down by the pool, pulled the sleeve of my jacket up and waited for the fish to pass close enough for me to grab it. At the first strike, I managed to get hold of it and had to hang on tight as it flapped about in my hand. What was peculiar was that this was not slippery like any fish I'd held before, it had a sandpaper like texture to it and it turns out it was a small shark.

As this isn't all about me I thought I should tell you about the lobster hunting. Stephan, in his chest high waders, was moving around some of the boulders looking for holes underneath them. He knelt down next to one that looked promising, the water was about 18 inches deep, then he plunged his arm under the rock going right in to his shoulder. He told us we were in luck, which suggests to me he'd already been nipped, in went his arm for a second go this time bringing out a medium sized lobster with glorious blue colouring.

Our foraging continued and resulted in 3 lobsters, half a dozen crabs, phantom shrimps, cockles and some other similar shell fish oh, did I mention the shark that I caught with my bare hands?

As the tide turned, we made our way back in land for a quick glass of wine before heading off to a local bar for a celebratory beer. I decided we should invite everyone back to ours for dinner which was when we got to sample the treasures of the day. First we ate the shrimps which, although small, were tastier than the prawns I'm used to. Apparently, pound for pound, the shrimps are more valuable than the lobster. Next up we tucked into the cockles and similar such things. There were 4 different types but we didn't know the english names for the other 3. After that the crabs and lobsters were chucked into the boiling vat while Stephan prepared a butter and lemon sauce to serve with them, undoubtedly the best lobster I have ever eaten. As if this wasn't a classy enough meal, Stephan also bought over a sea bass that he'd caught earlier in the week which we cooked on the barbecue along with a huge slab of steak that Patrick bought with him.

I'm really starting to understand what it's like to properly live your life. We have some great friends and I can't wait until the next low tide in a few months, when we can do this all over again.