PORT ANGELES — Dungeness crab had plenty to fear from the thousands of people who turned out for the 11th annual Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival and made for one of the event’s best Community Crab Feeds to date.

Scott Nagel, festival director, said he expected the final tally of attendance at the three-day celebration of good food, music and arts centered around City Pier to be between 10,000 and 15,000 people from nationwide and Canada.

The festival continues today with special events and pricing.

[See Page C1 for more details.]

Volunteers sold more than 800 crab dinners during Friday evening’s Community Crab Feed, sponsored by the Peninsula Daily News at Crab Central, a huge tent in the Red Lion Parking lot at 221 N. Lincoln St.

It was the best-attended Friday night crab feed the festival has ever seen, Nagel said Saturday.

“We were packed last night,” Nagel said.

Though West Coast Dungeness crab is currently in incredibly high demand, especially in Asia, Nagel said that did not mean any less crab for the feeds throughout the weekend.

Fresh crab

All the crab sold during the weekend was pulled fresh from local waters Friday, Saturday and today, Nagel said, adding that this fact is consistently one of the main reasons people come from all over for the festival.

“It’s not the same if it’s not fresh,” Nagel said.

Additionally, Nagel said Dungeness crab is one of the main things that unites all the people of the North Olympic Peninsula, especially the native tribes that have relied on it for thousands of years.

“Crab is part of all the communities on the Peninsula,” Nagel said, adding that the festival “has become a very special celebration because of that.”

JoElle Munger, of Sequim, said she brought her daughter Kendra to Port Angeles for her soccer game Saturday morning and toured the festival before they returned to Sequim in the afternoon for her son, Easton’s, game.

Crab Derby

“So we’re multitasking it today,” Munger said as she crouched to get the best shot of Kendra pulling a live Dungeness crab out of a large tank as part of the Crab Derby.

For $5, a person could get a chance to catch a live crab from the Crab Derby tanks set up on the stage at the City Pier and, if they succeeded, pay $17 to have it prepared to take home.

The tanks also contained special tagged crabs, which were free to take home for anyone who caught them.

Munger said her children’s favorite part of the festival is the Crab Derby.

“Each time they come, they do their crab fishing,” Munger said.

Kevin Kennedy, the Crab Derby “Captain” for the last 11 years, stood back from the two tanks containing live crab watching people laughing and squealing as they pulled the sputtering, splashing crustaceans from the water.

“I’m just trying to keep this chaos going,” Kennedy said with a laugh.

Kennedy, who is also responsible for managing the team that orders and unloads all the crab for the festival and runs the crab-cleaning stations, said attendance has generally increased over the years, though the weather does sometimes play a factor.

Influx from the north

Kennedy said, though, the hundreds of Canadians who pre-registered for the weekend are seldom turned away by gray and rainy skies.

“The weather doesn’t seem to scare them off,” Kennedy said.

Ryan Malane, the marketing director for Black Ball Ferry Lines, confirmed a big influx of Canadians for this year’s festival, saying the MV Coho between Port Angeles and Victoria added an extra run this weekend to handle the load.

Malane said this year’s surge of Canadians for the festival via the Coho was one of the largest he’s seen, with between 700 and 800 pre-registrations this weekend — more than double the numbers from last year.

Malane said the festival usually coincides with Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, when the Coho is scheduled for an extra run per day anyway, but did not this year.

Black Ball Ferry staff members decided this spring an extra run would be needed for the Saturday of CrabFest weekend, and Malane said he’s glad they did.

“It’s certainly been a fantastic success,” Malane said.

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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.