One Crabby Morning

Fortunately, the title has nothing to do with my attitude and all to do with genuine crabs. A group of Tyler's friends went crabbing this morning and came back with a haul. While some of them took the crabs home to their mother, I asked the others where they found them. We are a 45 minute drive from the ocean. 

"The crabs are just here," one said and pointed to an unlikely cassava patch growing by our house. 

They read my dubious look and said, "There is a waterlogged area and the crabs are in the mud there."

The plants behind these guys are cassava

The group of them ducked into the cassava field, Tyler and I followed, and they showed us the fine art of finding crabs who live in mud. Behind the cassava is the waterlogged area they referred to. Though there is very little to no standing water, the ground is saturated enough that the crab live in water "in their rooms," as the boys said. 

It looked like such an unlikely place to go crabbing. 

But the boys were experts and looked for "the crabs' footprints" by a hole. There were a lot of holes.

And then you fearlessly dig in. 

 Like, really dig in. 

And the method works.

Tyler tried it, too, though a little more timidly. 

                                      

You might have noticed there are no pictures of me with my arm up to my shoulder in a crab's hole. I couldn't, see. I had the camera.