Horseneck Clams, Seaweed, Door Latch

On Sunday I took my little (12′) aluminum boat (15 hp 2-stroke Evinrude) up to Tomales Bay to go clamming. A couple of near disasters: Backing up with a trailer has always been a problem for me; you have to turn the truck in an opposite direction from from your instincts to angle the trailer correctly. So after much travail and embarrassment (all the other boat launchers did it perfectly), I got my boat trailer down the ramp and boat in water. After parking returned to find 6″ of water in the boat. Forgot to put drain plug in. Estúpido numero dos. Bailed it out, headed for clam beds. The bay is beautiful, sandy beaches reachable only via water.

Sign made of license plates on Grandi Building in Pt. Reyes Station

   This was my first foray with my clam gun, and I ended up getting 7 horse necks and one Washington. The gun is a piece of 4″ PVC pipe with a handle and plunger that pumps mud out and gets you down to the clam without doing a lot of shoveling. This week I’m gonna practice backing up trailer in a parking lot. I’m upping my intake of food from the sea (including seaweed) these days.

Left: nifty door latch of plumbing parts in Fertile Grounds coffee shop this morning in Berkeley

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

8 Responses to Horseneck Clams, Seaweed, Door Latch

  1. Hi Lloyd,
    Love your blog.
    Here is a tip on how to back up the trailer I learned when I worked at a rental yard.
    Put your hand on the bottom of the steering wheel and push it in the direction you want the back of the trailer to go.
    Thanks for the blogs,
    Doug

  2. I discovered a little trick that I use when backing up a boat trailer. This is applicable for when you are backing straight down a boat ramp. Watch your mirrors and when you start to see the trailer in one mirror or the other, steer towards that mirror. For example, you see the trailer in the right mirror, steer towards the right. For some reason, it is an easier interpretation for me.

  3. still running a 2 stroke..? something to be said for keeping old things going but alot of oil is going out the back end into the bay..depending on the distances travel, maybe an electric trolling motor or a small 4 stroke might be considerate.. just sayin'..

    Mike W

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