SIUSLAW NEWS | SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 2019 | 9A
CRABBING from page 1A
which, along with being the
main type of crabbing in Ore-
gon, has also been named one
of the most dangerous occu-
pations in the country.
Crabbing comes with un-
certainty every day. Amber
says the ocean can be calm
one minute, and dangerously
rocky the next, “We’ve been
out before where I didn’t
know if we were going to
make it back in.”
So why continue to crab
with so much uncertainty
and danger? For the Novellis,
it’s what brought their family
together — and continues to
fulfill Amber through run-
ning Novelli’s Crab and Sea-
food.
Dungeness crab, the kind
of crab Amber and Kyle catch,
makes the most revenue for
Oregon out of all commercial-
ly fished marine life. Only five
counties in Oregon — Clat-
sop, Lincoln, Coos, Curry and
Tillamook— account for 96
percent of total commercial
fishing employment. Yet Ore-
gon is the top producer world-
wide for Dungeness crab, ac-
cording to commercialfishing.
org.
Dungeness crab is integral
to Oregon’s fishing industry,
and even though it comes
with risks, Amber and Kyle
continue to devote their lives
to bringing the crab to the
Florence community.
“It’s kind of funny to have
your goal in life be to bring
people fresh fish,” Amber says.
In the past, Kyle was a car-
penter by profession. He al-
ways loved to fish but didn’t
know how to make it a sus-
tainable career. “I told him ‘If
you love to fish and you can
make money doing this, then
let’s do it!’ He said yes, and so
we did it,” says Amber.
The Novellis bought a truck
with an overhead camper and
a small pull-behind, dory-like
boat and together started go-
ing up and down the Oregon
coast fishing. During this time
they lived in Newport. “We
FRAA ART CENTER
120 Maple Street
Phone: 541-997-4435
Hours Open: Mon 10am-2pm,
Wed-Fri 11am-5pm,
Sat 10am-5pm, Sun. 11am-5pm
Classes, Workshops & Events
BRAND NEW CLASS! Writers on
2nd Saturday Gallery Tour
Reception
Saturday, August 10, 2019 3 pm - 5 pm
August’s Featured Artists are Craig
Shreeve (Photography Artwork) and Alyssa
Lydick (Ceramics, Youth Artist, FRAA
Scholarship Winner)
Acrylic Pour Art w/ Pam Nedder
Sunday, August 11, 2019 2 pm - 4 pm
Make your own acrylic pour painting. All
materials provided. Pre-registration req’d
at FRAA or w/ Pam,
Painting with John Leasure
Saturdays 9 am - 12 pm
No painting experience required.
Contact: jnleasure@hotmail.com or
541-991-2754 for details and fees.
the River - Creative Writing
Workshop w/ Catherine Rourke
Writers’ Summer Boot Camp: Simple Steps
for Better Writing
Learn tips from the Amazon pros
Sat., August 24, 2019 10 am - 12 noon
All writing levels and genres, Contact:
CJReditor@gmail.com , 541-708-2120
Big Wave Poetry 1st Tuesday
Open Mic
Tuesday, August 6, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Admission is free and refreshments will be
available.
Small group meeting of poets to enhance
their written word.
Last Tuesday of each month, 6:30-8:30 pm
Write fraaoregon@gmail.com if you are
interested in joining.
FRAA will host this event on Thursday,
August 15th, 5-6:30 pm. It is a great time
to visit FRAA, enjoy good food,
refreshments and music by Denny Weaver
and get to know the FRAA members and
artists.
bring the Novelli family to-
gether. “It means a lot as a par-
ent to have your kids be proud
of what you do,” Amber says.
“When they come to help,
they have these proud smiles
on their face as they’re selling
our crab.”
Amber and Kyle opened
Novelli’s in 2014 and, two
years later, Amber entered the
Florence Area Chamber of
Commerce’s chowder contest.
“The first two years we
were just selling whatever fish
Kyle caught and I was playing
around with the soup. And
that just became a world of
its own. I had been playing
around with a crab bisque
recipe. Then I decided to add
potatoes and someone said
that it wasn’t bisque anymore,
it was chowder — so I went
with that,” Amber adds.
Her crab chowder won two
years of the chamber’s chow-
der festival in October and,
since then, has become im-
portant for Novelli’s to sustain
them through the crabbing
season closures.
Crabbing season begins
Dec. 1 and continues until
August. Amber keeps Novel-
li’s open during the months in
between to sell chowder and
the fish Kyle catches. They
also do bay crabbing, which
starts in September. But it’s
still not enough to sustain
them sometimes.
“I remember the last cou-
ple years the crabbing season
got postponed almost until
January or February. And by
then ... everyone’s dead broke
Get Results...List With Melody.
Poetry Workshop
FRAA Hosts Chamber After
Hours
did really good our first year
there, so we traded that boat
in and got The Midnight,”
Amber says. But it was on a
trip about seven years ago
with their friends that they
discovered crabbing.
“They needed a baiter so I
volunteered. I had never even
touched a crab,” Amber says.
After that trip, they bought
The Aquarius, which is their
current crabbing boat. When
they saw a houseboat for sale
in Florence, they decided to
take a chance. “We saw [No-
velli’s] for sale and we were
like ‘let’s make them come to
us,’” Amber said.
Up to then, she and Kyle
had been driving their catch
to Bend, Ore., where they had
set up a customer base to sell
their fish. However, fishing
out of Newport and Coos Bay
then loading the truck and
driving to Bend to sell to ev-
eryone was beginning to be
exhausting.
“I’ll never forget the very
first day that we opened here
in Florence. Mike Bones came
down in his outfit from the
casino and he had a group
with him and they were just so
welcoming. The whole town
just started coming down and
it was all these nice, nice peo-
ple!” Amber recalls. “It’s like
having a house on the water
where everyone just comes
to visit and it’s like everyone
ends up turning into your
personal friend.
“The people here are just
the nicest I’ve ever met.”
Crabbing has continued to
Writers Workshop
Writers discuss their current works and get
inputs from other writers.
2nd Tuesday, Monthly, 1-4 pm
Write fraaoregon@gmail.com for more
details.
For more information about classes, visit fraaoregon.org. To register for
these classes, please call or visit FRAA at our Art Center on Maple Street.
Melody Beaudro
Principal Broker
541 991-2151
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because you have no income,”
Amber says. “You get to the
point where you ask the Sal-
vation Army to help with your
electricity so it devastates all
of us. It’s something you just
can’t get away from. Every-
one’s waiting for Dec. 1, then
it gets postponed. So fisher-
men have probably the worst
Christmases ever.”
This is another obstacle
crabbers face in the crabbing
industry. Aside from the dan-
gerous ocean conditions they
encounter, crabbers have to
deal with the bio toxin domo-
ic acid. This toxin is produced
by a type of algae called Pseu-
do-nitzschia australis, and the
toxin accumulates in small
fish and shellfish, like crab.
Currently, researchers are
studying what triggers algae
to produce domoic acid. The
bio toxin can make humans
very sick if a person eats the
affected shellfish, which is
why it has delayed the start
of crabbing season annually
throughout various parts of
the Oregon coast over the past
four years. This year’s 2018-19
crabbing season was delayed
until Jan. 15 from the Colum-
bia area to Cape Arago — with
Florence situated between the
two — due to domoic acid,
according to the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture.
Inside Novelli’s there is a
large blue tank where Amber
keeps her crab, but it’s only
so big. The couple brings in
enough crab to fill up the
tank, but her crab pots have
to stay out in the ocean where
the crab can survive. If the
river had more saltwater, then
she could drop the crab pots
right outside her restaurant.
“That’s the other part of
why I’m closed during the
winter. Because my pump
is out there. If there’s a lot of
rain I get way too much fresh
water. It’s brackish enough to
keep my crabs alive for the
short time that they’re in [the
tank], but if I get a lot of rain
during the winter, it would
just kill them because [the wa-
ter] would be too fresh,” Am-
ber says. “That’s what makes
crabbing a little bit harder
here.”
See CRABBING page 10A
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