Below the surface.....

I have to share this story from a friend who commercial fishes here in town, probably the most die-hard and capable dory guy in the area. He's fun to watch as he launches solo day in and day out through some lively surf, he has it wired and you seldom see him second guess himself. We were talking about fishing and crabbing, wondering how it is creatures hide so well, when he started laughing about his first experience diving for crab.

After getting certified to dive he hit a local bay, the same bay his father had been crabbing recreationaly for years. He was convinced that with air he could just dive and start plucking the largest males off the bottom as he swam over them, however once under water he couldn't find a single crab to put in the bag. He searched fruitlessly over favoured sandbars but found nothing. If he had set traps they would normally fill in 30 minutes, but he was in a crab desert it seemed.

Finally, in frustration and ready to give it up he swam over the shadow-shape buried in the sand that he thought was a discarded crab shell and reached for it as the only proof that there were crab here at all. As his hand approached the mounded sand two claws instantly popped out of the sand just beneath his fingers and in unison from better coverage flew out(for the lack of a better term) about 200 other crabs also claws flailing in defense. "I freaked," he said "and I swear for a couple months I had dreams of crabs popping out of sand and pulling me down into the bottom of the bay!"