Crabbing is hands down the Santa Barbara most favorite beach activity. The boys have done this at Hilton Head every single time and insist on going everyday. So B and I get the gear, put on tons of lotion and head out to find some swampy land with the hope that there is no alligator and mosquitoes to attack us.

This was our first Kiawah trip so we had no clue where to go. Our first find, zero success – except for a 9 foot alligator circling our dock, probably wondering if we were going to throw in something juicer than a chicken leg – maybe like the little squeaky 2 years old who was uber excited about “allie”? Yep, not my favorite place…

Then we tried the river. All I can say is “stuck in a mud” has its magic to it. And I mean all 5 of us in mud up to our ankles – so what couldn’t be more fun for 3 kids? After her initial horror (“mama, Mia stuck in the mud, shoes dirty!), she got over it but Max somehow got mud on close to every inch of his body in less than 10 minutes. We caught 2 big crabs and the kids were picking small hermit crabs to their buckets. We came back to this spot everyday, always guessing on the tide levels and the mud levels we need to sort through. And we were quite the crabbers – with a record of 4 large blue crabs, dolphin and pelican sightings, oysters, herons – just absolutely gorgeous wildlife everywhere – truly magical. Some of those blue crabs are nasty and feisty, escaping our bucket and freaking poor Mia out with the claws reaching out for something to snap!

And as you notice, we got so much better at it – much more comfortable on our last day !