American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 184 Snow Crab and Lobster!
Day 22.

When Lin Yu'an woke up, the weather outside was still sunny and cloudless.

He calmly got up, first taking the steamed sea urchin roe from the wooden bowl, then adding a few pieces of grilled scallop adductor muscles to complete a simple but extremely nutritious breakfast.

Then, he boiled the ice water that had been melting overnight in the 5-gallon bucket and brewed a steaming cup of Labrador tea.

He sat in front of the fireplace and said to the camera, "I had a great day yesterday, and my goals are still very clear today."

“Yesterday I explored only a small part of the southern coastline and made a huge discovery.”

"I believe that there must be many more survivors hiding in that chaotic ice ridge."

"Before the next heavy snowfall covers the ice floes, I need to conduct another thorough search for food resources and expand my food reserves as much as possible."

He put his empty hiking backpack back on, dressed neatly, and stepped once again into that white world covered in ice and snow.

This time, he wore snowshoes and went straight across the natural bay where he had found cod and sea urchins the day before, heading further south.

The southern coastline becomes increasingly rugged, with massive, snow-covered rocks intertwined with towering ice pressure ridges.

It has formed a maze of canyons and passes, making the search here much more difficult than before.

But it is precisely in such complex terrain that it is most likely to intercept floating debris brought by storms.

"Storm surges and the currents during low tide are not random; they also follow the most basic physical laws."

"What I need to find is the 'sedimentation zone'. To find it, you only need to understand three things: the main channel of water flow, obstacles, and the energy decay zone."

He searched for a while, then pointed to a huge gap in the ice wall in the distance, which connected to the open sea.

“Look there, that gap is the main path for seawater trapped behind the ice wall to return to the sea during low tide.”

"Everything brought by the storm will be carried along by this 'main river channel'."

Then, his finger moved and locked onto a semi-enclosed area not far from his feet, consisting of three giant stranded ice floes and a massive land rock.

"These huge ice floes and rocks are like natural dams and boulders in the riverbed."

“When the water from that ‘main channel’ passes through here, it will inevitably be blocked and diverted by them.”

Finally, he pointed to the area behind those huge obstacles, a relatively flat area where the water flow was noticeably weaker.

"Finally, after the water flows through and around these huge obstacles, its speed drops sharply and its energy dissipates rapidly."

"Just like a river slows down at bends and behind rocks. When the water loses its kinetic energy, it can no longer carry heavy objects."

"Therefore, the area behind that obstacle is very likely the most probable 'treasure trove' left by this storm! Let's go and verify it now."

After he finished speaking, he immediately slid off the rock, put on his snowshoes, and walked precisely and without hesitation toward the area he had identified.

Sure enough, when he arrived, he found that his judgment was entirely correct.

In that slow-flowing area sheltered by huge ice floes and rocks, there was a massive accumulation of black seaweed, thicker and more concentrated than anywhere else he had ever seen before.

The entire surface of the seaweed pile had been frozen into a glass-like hard shell by the low temperature and splashing seawater.

Instead of rushing to dig, he first used the end of the axe handle to forcefully poke downwards, systematically exploring different locations in this mound-like seaweed patch.

"Bang, bang..." In most places, the axe handle struck the frozen seaweed with a dull sound, indicating that the seaweed underneath was soft.

Just as he was patiently moving around and stabbing repeatedly, a rusty metal object suddenly appeared in his line of sight in the distance!

He immediately stepped forward, squatted down, and brushed away the snow with his fingers, revealing a weathered tin bucket.

Grasp the edge and pull outwards with force; a simple wire handle, also covered in rust and calcification, is pulled out of the ice algae.

He continued cleaning, and the complete outline of the small tin bucket finally came into view.

The barrel has a dull, lead-gray metallic texture, and its surface is covered with dents and white, salt-like deposits.

The bottom third of the bucket was covered with a thick layer of orange-red rust, clearly recording how long it had been soaked and oxidized in seawater.

He turned the bucket upside down and pounded the bottom to clean out the sand and ice. Although the bucket was rusty, there were no holes and the structure was still intact.

"A galvanized steel drum. It looks old and worn, but to me, it's a portable little stove!"

After cleaning the small tin bucket, Lin Yu'an continued to use the axe handle to scoop up the seaweed. Suddenly, there was a "thud"!
A sharp, crisp sound, like striking stone, came from the end of the axe handle! He immediately perked up!

He walked to the point where the feedback came from, and using the axe blade as a hoe, began to dig down layer by layer the seaweed that was frozen half-hard.

He dug only a dozen centimeters deep, and his first prize appeared: a giant deep-sea scallop, bigger than his palm, perfectly frozen inside seaweed.

Its shell remained slightly open, as if time had been paused at the last moment of its life.

"A perfect start."

This discovery further convinced him of his judgment.

He didn't delve any deeper into this spot, but instead set the enormous deep-sea scallop aside for the time being.

Then he began to apply his sedimentary zone theory to conduct a systematic and thorough survey of the entire southern bay. "Okay, the first sedimentary point has been successfully verified."

He said to the camera, "Now, what I need to do is to find more places like this in this huge accident site."

Soon after, he found a narrow angle formed by a single, enormous piece of driftwood and an ice wall.

The space here is narrow, and the water flow slows down after being squeezed, making it easier for things to be left behind.

He probed back and forth in the frozen seaweed pile with the axe handle and soon felt the hardness again.

He began to dig, and this time, he dug out not shellfish, but several long, slender herrings that were frozen stiff.

And a small group of hairy fish that looked like silver knives.

“Bait fish.” He collected the small fish and put them in the side pocket of his backpack.

"Their appearance shows that the storm not only overturned the seabed, but also disrupted the entire marine ecosystem."

"Although these small fish don't have much meat, they are rich in oil, making them an excellent source of energy and also the best bait."

He continued onward and came to another depression he had identified, surrounded by several giant stranded ice floes, which was lower in elevation.

The seaweed here is thicker and wetter, and you can even see partially frozen seawater at the bottom of some ice crevasses.

He changed his digging strategy, no longer using the axe to turn over large areas, but instead kneeling beside the cold algae pile and taking out his Damascus steel hunting knife.

Using the tip of his knife, he began to methodically peel away the semi-frozen seaweed, layer by layer.

Suddenly, the tip of his knife touched something hard under the seaweed, and he felt a unique, non-stone-like scraping sensation.

He stopped what he was doing and reached his gloved fingers into the cold, slippery seaweed to touch it.

What he felt was a texture with clearly defined segments and a rough surface.

He carefully parted the seaweed around him, and a snow crab with a beautiful reddish-brown carapace and several long walking legs still in a crawling posture appeared before his eyes!
He picked up the frozen snow crab: "Snow crabs... live at least tens of meters deep in sandy or muddy seabeds. It seems this storm is more powerful than I imagined."

This discovery was just the beginning. He realized that these benthic creatures were likely washed ashore in large numbers, and he immediately expanded the scope of his detailed search in the area.

Sure enough, in the next ten minutes or so, he found three more snow crabs of similar size under a pile of seaweed nearby.

Suddenly, right next to where he had dug out the fourth snow crab, he saw another pair of spiky pincers that didn't belong to a snow crab, as well as a long tentacle extending from under the seaweed.

He immediately dropped his tools and used his bare hands to clean up the surrounding ice and seaweed.

When the creature was fully revealed to him, he immediately recognized its distinctive, enormous claws and dark green shell.

He couldn't help but let out a low exclamation: "Unbelievable! It's an American lobster! What people commonly call a Boston lobster!"

"Lobster! Unbelievable!"

He carefully picked up the lobster, which was also frozen solid.

"They usually hide in the crevices of rocks in deep water and are the apex predators of benthic organisms. The fact that they could be washed up shows how terrifying the waves were back then."

He even found another lobster, slightly smaller, nearby, which was also perfectly flash-frozen and preserved.

After carefully packing his precious treasures—four snow crabs and two lobsters—into his backpack, his exploration continued.

He arrived at the last site he was exploring that day, which he considered the largest and most promising sedimentary area: a natural bay formed by a giant stranded ice floe and land rocks.

That area was completely different in color from the rest of the place, presenting a deep purplish-black color, like an alien landscape.

It doesn't look like a pile of seaweed washed ashore; its surface isn't that loose. Nor does it resemble land rocks; it covers an area of ​​three or four square meters.

"This is……"

Filled with curiosity, he quickly walked forward, squatted down, and used the handle of his axe to brush away the surface snow. When he saw what it was, he couldn't help but gasp in amazement.

Those weren't stones, but mussels! Countless, densely packed deep-sea blue mussels!
"An entire mussel bed was lifted up?"

The scene before us is extremely spectacular; this black reef is like a "mussel carpet" laid out flat on the ground.

He could clearly see that countless mussels, much larger than those he had collected in the intertidal zone, were intertwined and connected together, forming an inseparable whole.

Due to the sudden drop in temperature, the entire mussel bed, along with the stones it encased, froze into blocks of "mussel ice bricks."

He forcefully tapped the "mussel reef" with the back of his forest axe, producing a dull "bang" sound, like striking cement.

"Now, my protein food reserves have reached an unprecedented level of safety."

Looking at this inexhaustible "black gold mine" before him, a reassuring smile spread across his face.

"Although the value of a single crab is not as high as that of a lobster or a snow crab, this quantity is enough to last until the end of the challenge."

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