Puerto Vallarta Day 5: Crabs Abound

That’s right, crabs are running amok through my vacation, and I am one of them.

I don’t know why, but today I’ve been in a mood that just shouldn’t be allowed to exist on vacations. I’m having a hard time sleeping well, so I suppose that might have something to do with it. An ocean located directly out the window is a lot louder than you might expect, and the cars on the highway out the other window sound like they’re all 18-wheelers going about 110mph.

See! Look at that! I’m complaining about being in a beach house! Gah.

When I have my own beach house, it’s going to be a 3 minute walk away from the ocean. That will be perfect. And it will be dome-shaped so hurricanes can’t knock it over. Brilliant.

Right then, what did I do today? Other than moping and being unpleasant for my housemates (sorry Dustin and Bonnie… I’ll try to be better tomorrow) the highlight of the day was the nature walk Dustin and I took, clamboring over the rocks on the north side of the beach during low tide and exploring the strange and rocky landscapes beyond. And better yet, I was no longer the only crab on the beach. Here are some pictures of the many and varied crabs we discovered today:

The little guy above lives in the stairs that lead down from the condo patio onto the beach. I saw him by luck out of the corner of my eye as he scuttled for cover. He politely stuck around and posed while Dustin got a picture. He’s abut the size of my big toe.

Now THIS little guy is really little. He’s about the size of my thumbnail, and you’d never see him on the sand except that they scuttle like mad when you walk past and catch them out of their hidey-holes. The holes are only about the size of a pencil, so the past few days I wasn’t sure WHAT could be living in them. Ever since we saw this guy, we’ve been seeing his buddies everywhere. Can you see the shadows his little googly eyes cast on his back? He’s really pretty cute.

I’m not the only one who likes coconut rum! We found this coconut washed up in the rocks that we were clamboring over. We’ve seen quite a few beached coconuts, but most of them have been floating in the ocean so long they’re now pickled. This one, as you can see, was still quite fresh. And it was FULL of these little crabs. This guy was the biggest of the crew. I think there’s enough coconut in the shell you can tell about how big he was.

Here are the commonest crabs. They live on the jetties and rock piles and they blend in really well until they start scuttling about. The smallest one I’ve seen was no bigger than a sand crab. The biggest was probably about the size of a salad plate. They’re quite pretty colors if you can get close enough to see them, which is difficult unless they’re dead and half-eaten. (Alas.) Here’s a close-up:

This guy’s about the size of a tea saucer.

And that is the story of my crabby day.

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