Cloudy, drizzly, 49 F, dark, dismal. I'm going to go get some of that homemade clam chowder that "She Who Must Be Obeyed" has just finished making!! YUM 
Cool!
We had salmon chowder for lunch. (our seafood comes frozen or canned and from a truck not a boat, around here 
) It really "hit the spot," though.
Well, our clams came chopped in a can. Even though we live in Maine. That far inland you wouldn't know about "fresh seafood". But, canned clam chowder hit the spot as well! And to be honest, canned or frozen seafood can be just as tasty in a good chowder! Corn can also be made into a decent chowder. I am really going to miss Fried Clams, when we move to NY State in a few years. That can only be enjoyed fresh off the clam flats!
I used to buy canned clams, emulsify them and add some to a Bloody Mary. Mmm!
I actually do know what fresh seafood is like. I grew up along the Gulf coast. Fishing the gulf was a frequent pastime for me, in my wilder youth. Boy, do I have some stories to tell. I used think that someday I will have tried every fish known to swim. 
We ate quite a few scallops and oysters, but our clams were dug up from the river mud. You could also go gigging for fish along the sand bars, before they outlawed it.
There were places where you could be a half a mile from shore in knee deep water. We had been years without a hurricane in those days. Then we got several mild ones in a short span of years and the sand bars were gone.
Ah, I didn't know that! But, I often drool at the prospect of fresh shrimp, right off the boat! 
You know how they "grade" shrimp by size, right?
A common fifty to sixty grade is usually sold frozen as a cocktail shrimp and it takes fifty to sixty to make a pound. In my youth, it was quite common for the boats to hit the docks, loaded with holds full of them, along with some premium twelves, eights, and even a few shrimpers who had found masses of sixes. They all had a few giant "prawns", too, but they were usually too expensive for me.
Obviously, the eights, sixes, fours, twos and the occasional one or onehalf commanded premium prices. Buying them from a shrimper who is a long way from home and needs to get diesel saves some money, though. I once bought eight ones, several fours, twenty something twos and two onehalves from a guy for twenty bucks. It should have been about seventy bucks or more. It was really way more than I wanted, but he was frustrated and limping home. He gave me the last of his catch for the amount of money I was already prepared to spend. I was not actually looking for shrimp, but I saw a boat and decided to check it out.
He had hit the docks late and missed the restaurateurs, who pay the big bucks for live giant shrimp, because he had engine trouble and had to do some repairs in the water. He was either going to have to dump his catch, because he was too far away from home to eat it all before it went bad or try to get a little bit of money out of it.
I had heard the crew talking about using over thirty feet of nylon rope as substitute for a belt they needed, (they had a broken engine pulley that was eating belts) having to replace the rope belt every ten minutes and worried that they would not have enough to get back. They had already broken both of their spare belts earlier in the day and were trying to use this rope to substitute.
I suggested that if he can delay his return trip, I would give him a ride across the bay to the mainland and we could hit a parts store. He was beside himself. It was like no one had ever done anything "nice" for him who wasn't a shrimper. Anyway, I paid the twenty bucks, he asked for, took him ten miles to town and back, bought him a case of beer for his three man crew, got some ice for the shrimp and beer and tipped him ten bucks.
I felt a little guilty getting all his shrimp, at first, but he said I was his Saviour and that he still owed me. I was invigorated spiritually to be able to help a working man, who happened to be a third generation shrimper and still wanted to do more, but he only needed a trip to town. He was able to buy a replacement pulley that would suffice and a couple of belts. He was happy.
I had made a friend that day that I will never see again. I guess that's the best kind, really.
