CRISFIELD, Md. - Living in Alaska, Carl Lewis has his pick of culinary crustaceans - king crabs, snow crabs, Dungeness crabs. But sometimes, the former Baltimore resident wants hometown seafood. With a few clicks of his computer mouse, Mr. Lewis can order a mess of Maryland's finest blue crabs, courtesy of The Crab Place in Crisfield.

        “I usually get a half-bushel,” Mr. Lewis said from Juneau. “They are pretty expensive to get up here, but you've got to treat yourself sometimes.”

        Mr. Lewis is one of a growing number of people using the Internet to catch some seafood.

        Greg Cain, founder of the Crab Place and owner of a Crisfield computer store, conceived his e-crab business three years ago while driving along Md. 413, a narrow strip of highway running through the southern tip of Maryland's Eastern Shore and ending at Crisfield.

        The waterfront town of about 3,000 is considered by some locals the crab capital of the world.

        “I figured, we have crabs and everybody else doesn't,” Mr. Cain said. “I built a home Web site, and it got a little action.”

        Since then, the Crab Place has done just swimmingly. Last year, it filled 1,500 orders from across the country.

        “This year, we've tripled that pace so far,” said Mr. Cain, 30, who expects gross sales of about $700,000 this year.

        While that might be just a drop in the bucket compared with sales by major seafood distributors, Mr. Cain and other Internet vendors are establishing a new market niche for Maryland crabs.

        “It's growing and growing,” Harvey Linton of Linton's Seafood said of his Internet business.

        Mr. Linton operates a roadside shop a few miles down the highway from Mr. Cain, who helped him set up his Internet site. Mr. Linton said the Internet has helped expand his market outside the local area, where blue-collar workers can't always afford seafood.

        “You couldn't sell this crabmeat at $20 a pound around here,” Mr. Linton said. “Out there, those people have jobs and are making good money.”

        Rob Cernak of Obrycki's, the oldest crab house in Baltimore, said mail-order sales — about a third of which are made online — now account for 12 percent of his business. His mail-order sales last month were up 60 percent from a year ago.

        “It used to be just gravy — now it's a serious part of our business,” Mr. Cernak said. “I think the Internet opened up people's minds into thinking you can get products wherever you want them, whenever you want them.”

        Two major challenges for Web vendors are finding a steady supply of crabs and trying to keep shipping costs affordable.

        “It's not the same as handing it over the counter,” Mr. Cain said. “It's a lot of work to weed out the headaches of shipping perishable goods across the country.”

        When Valerie McCadden, a Maryland native now living in Maine, recently ordered from the Crab Place, she shelled out about $160 for about 50 crabs, including $38 for shipping.

        “That sounds like a lot, but the crabs themselves are expensive,” she said. “You have to remember we don't do this a lot. This is the big-time treat for the year.”

        According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Chesapeake Bay's crab population is sinking to its lowest level in more than three decades, and state officials want to reduce the crab harvest by 15 percent over the next three years to double the spawning stock.

        “For the industry as a whole, it's not a really good outlook; but for us personally, we get everything we need,” Mr. Cain said.

        Mr. Cain oversees operations for the Crab Place, while his corporate vice president and brother Matt, 26, handles inventory and tracks shipments.

        Each day about 7:30 a.m., employees pick up crabs from watermen in a refrigerated truck. The women who clean and pack the crabs arrive at the converted boat dealership about 8 a.m. while Matt checks orders and inventory.

        Most of the softshell crabs are shipped cleaned and frozen, but live crabs also are available. Hard-shelled crabs usually are steamed and frozen, but also are available live.

        “We ship most stuff overnight,” Greg Cain said. “Nothing takes longer than two days to get out.”

        And a little crab goes a long way — to Maine, Alaska, Florida and all points between. The Crab Place has more customers in California than any other state.

        “There seems to be a lot of transplanted Marylanders out there,” Greg Cain said.

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