Three-year-old Alexander Edwards has his personal 'toy' crab at Busha Clarke's crab party at Paradise Park in Savanna-la-Mar on Saturday. - Photos by Janet Silvera

Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

Eric 'Busha' Clarke's grandfather Eric bought a beach house at Paradise Park, Westmoreland, in the 1950s and a crab-eating feast on a small scale was just one of the many family traditions.

That tradition has become so successful, that in the last 15 years Busha Clarke has titillated the appetite of crab lovers from the east, west, north and south of the island to partake of his annual crab fest. And in the last three years, he has turned the winning event into a fund-raiser for his Rotary Club, giving back thousands of dollars to their cause.

At $2,000 per person, he never needed much convincing to get the large turnout of Jamaicans who fared the thunderstorm last Saturday and found themselves cracking boiled, garlic, curried and run-down crab, while tearing the meat off succulent spare ribs, stripping peppered shrimps of their coating and downing roasted corn with top-shelf liquor at what must have been Busha Clarke's best crab party ever.

Complemented by the music of the '70s and '80s and the dancing dynamites Andrew and wife Kim Burke, the next best thing at this 'must-attend' soirée was great conversation.

Life of the party

The Burkes, dancers of no mean order, were the life of the party, while celebrated race car driver, Doug Gore, showed his young fans that his feet could move as fast on the dancefloor as behind the wheels.

Cheryl Atkinson, Hugh Logan, Claude Deidric and Michelle Perkins cemented all that was great and necessary at a real fest. Tristan Alvarado undid his shirt at 2:00a.m. and those who watched waiting for more were left salivating.

Those who came out to support the worthy cause included Fred, Roxanne and Ralph Smith, Mary Chambers, Clayton Morgan, Dave Anderson, Roy and Chris Hutchinson, Russell and Susan Hammond, Ricardo Bowleg, Tom Jones, Gary Stephens, Karen Lannigan, Richard Bourke, Brian and Sheilagh Jardim, Denny and Veena Chandiram, William Craig, Ray Therrien 'Chang', Sophie LeAung, Martine Fontaine, Everald Eubanks, Karen and Wayne Vaz, Dwayne and Beth Marzouca, Nicky McKoy, Jeffrey and Judy Ziadie, Wayne and Melinda Burrowes, Susan Spence, Dean Suckoo, Jennifer Izzo, Donavon Perkins and Laura Alvarado