Crab Artwork

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Issy didn’t sleep very well. She says she woke up in the middle of the night convinced that there was an intruder in our room. I think she might have been taking just a bit too much notice of what we’ve continually been told since we first arrived here - "put all your valuables in a safe and make sure you lock and chain your doors at night; this IS Broome”. They make it sound like the backstreets of Johannesburg. Issy’s intruder turned out to be me, so just as well she doesn’t keep a baseball bat next to her side of the bed.

We head off to Cable Beach hopeful that the crocs that have kept it closed for the past two days have taken their business elsewhere. The “beach closed” signs seem to have been removed, so we ask umbrella man if the crocs have gone. He says he “thinks so”. We’re somehow not finding this all that reassuring. We ask him who keeps an eye out for these reptilian monsters, and he tells us “everyone”. Huh? They’re not relying on a large team of helicopters combing every square millimetre of the surf and sand multiple times a day? It seems not. If John and Mary strolling casually along the sand happen to notice one, and they remember to tell someone, then they close the beach. If not, well, this way croc food. We decide to go for a quick dip between the flags. Hmmm. I’m not quite sure how we’re going to swim between one flag. I wonder what happened to the other one. A croc got it perhaps? Our dip is very quick and shallow, and we retreat to the hopefully safe haven of our umbrella well up from the waterline.

We've been very impressed by the artwork produced by Cable Beach’s large army of crabs - tiny balls of sand in stunning patterns cover large areas above the low tide line. We’d assumed that they were a result of these tiny creatures having to re-dig their holes after the tide fills them in every day. I watch a few at work next to my sun lounge. It seems we’ve got this all wrong. They come out of their holes empty-clawed, and then seem to form the tiny balls wherever they happen to be standing at the time. The Google machine confirms that the balls are formed when they chew sand, eat the nutrients that they can squeeze out of it, and then spit out the residue. Issy doesn’t quite seem to share my fascination. She says I’m obsessed. I think she might be right. She says I sound like a crabologist....at least I thought that’s what she said, although I could possibly have mistaken the “b” for a “p”.

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