Chowdafest with Jan and Teresa

Our neighbors Jan and Teresa invited us out the other weekend for a day of fishing and cockle hunting out near Aramoana. We first went out onto one of the estuaries at low low tide to gather our cockles. We were a little late getting out there and the tide had just started covering the cockle beds. But we were able to fill our buckets and get back to the beach before it got too deep.

From the beach we drove over to the Aramoana mole to try our hand at fishing to supplement our catch of southern clams. Here's me pulling in the big one...

This "rock" fish was massive

I was actually able to pull in one keeper during our time out on the mole but unfortunately Jan and Teresa didn't have any luck. Andrea decided to skip the fishing and spent her time checking out the local wildlife. Here's a couple of the seals from the colony that lives at the end of the mole.

As we all gathered in our catch someone suggested clam chowder for dinner. This was shortly followed by the idea of competitive clam chowder. Yes! Chowdafest is on!

On the way back after giving most of our weights and hooks to the seaweed.

We got back to the house and started working up our respective chowders. Once everything was set we wandered over to their place for a fantastic wine and chowder dinner. We both went with fairly classic new england clam chowder and they were both delicious. We decided to call it a draw and celebrated with more wine.

Chowder makes good neighbors.

Best to all,
Dave and Andrea