February 5, 2008.

It’s been a couple of days and we’re still in the lee of Cave Cay. Since our last post I’ve speared another snapper to add to our diet. Christy has also found 3 Marine Hermit Crabs.

The Marine Hermit Crabs are much bigger than their dirt dwelling counterparts. They live in abandoned conch shells so you don’t realize you’ve found one until you pick up the conch shell and find something unusual inside. They have 2 large claws and a tiny little body that hides inside the huge shell. The book says that they are better than lobster so they’ve been added to the menu as well.

Once the Marine Hermit Crabs are out of their shell they’re a sight to see. They have big ole’ crab claws, then there’s 2 sets of spider-like walking legs and then a long soft tail. The soft tail resembles a lobster’s tail except that it has no shell. Kinda gross, but we’ll see how it goes…..

We’ve decided to take the day off from snorkeling as some other folks were run out of the water by an 8 foot shark earlier today. He was cruising through the best spear fishing grounds that we’ve found near the cay so we’ll give him some time to leave before we jump in there again.

Christy and her friends Elly and Mary decided to use the time to go beachcombing on the northern beach.
They spent about 2 hours finding interesting, beautiful shells, while I farted around on the boat.

Afterwards we headed in to a very shallow beach and Christy and her friend Sue did a little shelling by snorkeling the shallow flats that run around the southern end of the cay.

Update. Its now a little later in the day and lunch and dinner are over. The crabs were a very tasty lunch and the fish combined with some rice and carrots was an outstanding dinner.


We’re probably going to be here for another day so tomorrow we’ll spend some time putting some more fish in the fridge.:)