Cleaning Groco sea strainers

We have Groco sea strainers for all of the through hulls on our Grand Banks 42 (engines, generator, air conditioning, etc.):

The strainer should be opened and cleaned regularly to remove any debris that will impeed the flow of sea water. To remove the filter:

There are two sharp parts to hold:

So, my solution was to add heat shrink tubing to each side:

Problem solved!
Happy cruising....