crabs and water colors

[asakiyume]

sovay has a beautiful entry about walking through a salt marsh on Cape Cod (it includes the tale of the crab who is a baseball fan--but what team? Probably Red Sox, Cape Cod being in Massachusetts, but it could be a contrarian/free-spirited crab, in which case who knows? Maybe even Yankees) and her observations spur me to write about the crabs we met among the mangroves.

We first encountered crabs walking on a boardwalk at the Anne Kolb Nature Center at lowish tide.

"They're blue!" wakanomori said, and it's true: many of the crabs are blue crabs:



But there are also tiny mangrove tree crabs, which hug mangrove prop roots or branches, always hiding shyly on the side away from you. I didn't get a photo, but you can see some here.

At low tide, the mud is dotted with crabs' holes, and there's a percussive, multi-pitched sound of popping as they go in and out of them. Some of the holes aren't really holes; they're tubular sculptures made by natural potters without the benefit of a wheel.

And here is a swarm of tiny crabs--these are along the shore of Chokoloskee Bay by Everglades City [which is small town, not a city]--running away from my approach, probably screaming "Huuumaaaaan!!!" the way a crowd of people would scream "Shaaaaark!!"

Sovay talked about the color of the water where she was, "a cloudy lime-juice green, sun-shot and silt-dusted," and it made me think of the many colors of water we saw.

Green...



Red ...



Golden-gray



Olive-brown



... and now I really want to post about mangroves.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love these photos. It's such a fascinating area, but one unlikely I'll ever visit, as the heat would probably kill me.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I visited so you don't have to! I'll post more in the days to come.

[sovay]

Probably Red Sox, Cape Cod being in Massachusetts, but it could be a contrarian/free-spirited crab, in which case who knows? Maybe even Yankees

I love the idea of a solitary, defiant Yankees crab, crankily waving its claws at the rest of the Sox fans scuttling sideways near its patch of silt.

and her observations spur me to write about the crabs we met among the mangroves.

This is a gorgeous mangrove crab post. I love the different colors of the water captured on camera. Thank you for this glimpse of another part of the world.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

love the idea of a solitary, defiant Yankees crab --me too!

And thank you--as I say, it's your post, which was such a joy to read, that spurred me.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

The green water shot is so beautiful. It reminds me of the canals in Kerala. But the red is cool too. I suppose the dirt is red there? It makes the water look like an alien planet.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think it's because of the tannins that the mangroves put into the water.

Now I want to go look at images of Kerala's canals....

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Wow, the Kerala backwater is beautiful--what a cool place!

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Dirt here is not red, it's sandy.

[ivy]

Man. Now I want a pirogue and a day with nothing else to do....

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Right??

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

My gosh! How cool about all the crabs! And blue! I never knew there were blue ones.

I love the various colors of water. How neat!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The blue was such a startling blue! Like a child had colored it.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Water and crabs! This brings up so many happy hours of playing on the beach when I was a kid. I especially loved trying to catch sand crabs (almost impossible) and finding hermit crabs.

Your photos are so beautiful. I love the way you captured the different colors of water.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What wonderful childhood memories!

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely mangroves! and lovely sucking life-filled mud. The wonderful world of neither sea nor land - I'm so glad you had the visit. (I love the colours of the water.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

^_^ More to come (in slow time, though)

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

One regret I have from living in Mayotte was that we never went "fishing" for mangrove crabs. The crabs were ginormous (up to 2.2lbs) and supposed to be good eating. During the day, people reportedly caught them by throwing out a raw piece of chicken with a line attached to it and pulling in the crab once it latched on to the chicken. At night, at low tide, you were supposed to walk in the mangrove and blind the crabs with a flashlight and then catch them from behind.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Snapping up this piece of information for story details--thank you! [Not sure if it'll actually figure, but I love it!]

I understand that regret. When we were in Everglades City, I kept seeing signs for stone crab this and stone crab that, and I wanted to try eating some with stone crab in it, but we didn't get a chance.