Island Paradise Day 19

There are so many cool and creepy things here.

Did you know that hermit crabs change shells as they grow…moving into bigger shells? Yes, of course you know that – so did I! BUT…did you know that when a big empty shell washes ashore, a group of hermit crabs will get together, line themselves up smallest to biggest, and then the biggest moves into the vacant shell and one by one each crab moves into the slightly bigger shell next to them? How cool is that? Check out this video

There are lots of land crabs here. They run all over the place at night making creepy noise in the bushes, and generally scaring the shit out of us when walking home from town. I usually scream first followed by Stephane screaming because my scream scared him! That inevitably cracks me up cause he screams like a girl, and then he gets mad at me for laughing at him. We really are quite a sight stumbling through the jungle at night dodging crabs, some of which are huge. These bluish land crabs are apparently edible. Every night we see “crabbers” out behind the house with flashlights and big white bags collecting them. Now of course that gets me thinking…hmmm…free food!

Soon the inevitable conversation happens

Me: “Do you eat the land crabs?” Susan: “Absolutely not!” Me: “Why not?” Susan: “Because they eat dog poo.” Me: “No way. Have you actually seen them eat shit?” Susan: “We have two dogs. We have not picked up any poo in five years. Do you see any dog poo on the ground?” Me: “No.” Susan: “I rest my case.” I am not yet convinced, however, and think I could do the same thing as I do with garden snails: catch them, feed them cornmeal for a few days, and then eat them! I am just trying to figure out how to build a land crab trap because all be darned if I am going to pick the nasty little suckers up except to drop them in a pot of boiling water.

Now I know what you are thinking...hmmmm...free pooper scooper!

Well if crabs are not creepy enough, in the Bay Islands there are 19 species of snakes. We have only seen one so far – this little green headed guy was roaming around on our deck for a few minutes today.



The house pictured below is a few lots down the beach from us. It is owned by a Canadian diplomat who does not come here very often. Apparently he asked one of the people who lives here to go check on his house. When they went in there they found a six foot long snake skin! Now no one here will check on the guys house because they are all pretty convinced there is a bigger than six foot snake who has taken up residence there. He is probably living on the bats who moved in first.

I found out the other night that you can snorkel in the dark – and see very different things like lobsters, crabs and sea urchins which move around a lot but only at night. Everyone here has underwater flashlights, and our neighbours said they would take us out to try it one night. Snorkeling in the dark seems scary to me. Even day time snorkeling can be creepy. Today we were snorkeling right out front here and a huge – really huge – Southern Sting Ray came VERY CLOSE to us. I think you are supposed to remain calm and still when you see them because they are not aggressive and would only sting if under threat, and I did initially because he was about 20 feet below us, but then he turned and started swimming toward us. Naturally I started flapping and squealing and that only drew his attention and caused him to come closer.

I learned how to speed swim today.