Exploring Morjim’s Tide Pools: A Quiet Wildlife Escape on Goa’s Northern Beaches

So, this year I decided to give Mandrem a shot. It is farthest away, in north Goa, but the ocean alas was just too far away from the drop-off point and from what I could make out rockless, too. But all was not lost because I set down my camp chair near a small lagoon. My eyes were on the crumpled sand. It seemed as if the sand bubbler and soldier crabs had a teeming basti here — though none of them showed their faces save a couple of shysters which hastily ducked back in, when they saw they were under observation. Or perhaps it was simply too warm (past 11am) for them to be out and about.

The lagoon was being patrolled by a child and her minders, having quite a ball splashing through and I thought there goes the chance of seeing anything here. Not quite, for there was one indefatigable little stint running up and down the shallow water, deftly picking up invisible morsels from the surface of the water, and at the far end, a pair of blazing white terns (I couldn’t quite tell make and model) fished, hovering cleverly against the stiff breeze about thirty feet up, beaks and eyes pointed straight down. Every now and then they would dive headlong in and emerge, with or without a catch, wing swiftly to another nearby spot and repeat the process.

Later, it was back to that old favourite Morjim. The rocks here were festooned with what I assume were barnacles (or were they limpets?): they looked like little volcanoes with their tops blown open. But inside their ‘caldera’ there appeared to be something greenish in occupation, quick to duck back inside if you made an incautious move. And craggy carunculated black-and-white striped nassa (I think) sea-snails jam-packed shoulder-to-shoulder along with a solitary white oyster shiny as a silver medal. The finest fissures in the rocks were jam-packed with minuscule shells, like commuters hanging on in a Mumbai local — you’d need a Swiss Army knife to prise them loose and that would not be kosher. This time one of your all-time favourites, the hermit crabs seemed in absentia though some of the regulars were present.

There were beautiful turquoise blue swimming crabs, turned to a gorgeous shade of jade green by the slightly murky water, mottled crabs with ferocious red claws, sand-coloured ones that slipped swiftly sideways and buried themselves as you incautiously stepped near them. Some, a dark avocado green, and looking as if armour plated, would eye you belligerently out of angry red periscope eyes, as they clambered across the rocks and then slipped into the pools, preferring narrow niches between the rocks, in which to disappear. It was a good spot to set down your camp chair, pull out the binoculars and just watch in silence. Eventually, you knew they would peer and venture out.

Crabs per se are very sensitive to movement and any kind of disturbance. They lurk under the crevices in the tidepools, cautiously waving a pincer or two outside, pop-eyes peeled, waiting for the tiny fish swimming past, or simply pick up tiny morsels and delicately transport them to their mouths, like socialites using chopsticks.

Two children, a boy perhaps seven years old and his younger sister had claimed another neighbouring tide pool all for themselves and were raising merry hell, playing ‘catch the crocodile’ or some such game, jumping in and out of the pool, and occasionally on one another, much to the annoyance of the resident crabs nearby, who disdainfully would retreat back into their niches when the mini tidal waves caused by the children became too much. Worse, there on the sand was a vagabond Doberman-mix exultantly romancing a Labrador (much to the dismay of her owner), dashing heedlessly through the pools, as canoodling couples eyed them and giggled. And this was supposed to be a quiet neighbourhood!

And yet again, it made no difference to the little stints that patrolled the rocks or the gimlet-eyed pond heron that stalked up and down them, just a few feet away deftly picking up invisible tidbits. Some ultra-sensitive diehard birders insist that you should refrain from watching birds feeding lest you embarrass them and prevent them from eating and consequently starve them to death but these just ignored you, just as so many cosmopolitan bird
species do.

You trudge back towards the shack: A few coquina butterfly shells, silky white and polished lie scattered on the sand but this time you spot no spiral screw shells nor ribbed cockles. But out there, fluttering low over the waves is a butterfly heading straight out to sea – seemingly on a suicide mission. Or is it simply on its way to Dubai to seek fame and fortune, like so many of us?