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Journalism of Courage
Baga beach is one of north Goa’s more lively beaches. In the evenings, busloads of domestic tourists debauch themselves out of coaches from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka to rather raucously enjoy the sunsets and water sports. It’s quieter early morning when there are a few families with children trickling down to the sea’s edge, delighting in the clear sunlight and coolness – the youths made loud and foolish with beer are yet to emerge.
It is largely a sandy beach – a rocky section lies beyond a creek feeding into it from the mainland, which you are loath to cross, fearing what it may be carrying down, but away from it, the water is clear as Bombay gin. At any rate, not a very good beach for tide-pooling as such, though even sandy beaches can surprise you. On one occasion, a section of the beach was littered with a constellation of stranded starfish, which one concerned little girl, encouraged by her parents, was lovingly placing back into the sea.
This morning, however, the water, glassy as it was, seemed absolutely devoid of life. The sand was intricately ribbed by the massaging wavelets, you could see clearly to the bottom – but there was not the flicker of a fish, or sneaky move by a crab. This time, it seemed you would return home bankrupt.
But then, you notice a dark shimmy in the sand, at the bottom of the about three-inches of water. A closer look and you discover it’s caused by a cluster of small hermit crabs in their screw-shell homes, having an almighty brouhaha as they tried to muscle their way into each other’s residences. Obviously, some realtor had sold several of them the same property – and left them to sort out matters, possession is nine-tenths of the law, after all. Which, they were trying to obtain, using fisticuffs, a tug of war and a right royal dust-up. One little fellow was being furiously chased by a rival, another pair, claws entangled were spinning round and round rather like folk dancers, trying to yank each other out of their home: the spectacle had me in splits.
A pair of larger hermits in rock shells, watched the action from the sidelines. We picked one of these up for a closer look: he was hefty and to defend his home had blocked the entrance, with one massive claw, his tiny beady eyes staring: the message was clear – get past this claw at your peril! Down below in the water now, the wavelets had started smothering the fighters in the sand and had separated them and I lost track of them as they were washed away by the receding waves.
The problem with hermit crabs (my all-time favourite), is that they are unfortunately, born with cushy tushies: which are prone to being pinched and pulled and munched on. They have soft, asymmetrical abdomens and exoskeletons which makes them easy pickings for predators. Though their larvae are free-swimming (and may be hedonistic), as they grow, they have no option but to find themselves, let’s put this politely: helmets for their bottoms (and the rest of their bodies). So, they seek out the abandoned shells of sea snails and the like and back into them, their last pair of legs (they have five pairs in all) affixing them firmly to the rear of the shell.
Alas, their problems do not end here, because they keep growing and eventually, they become too tight, a fit for their current accommodation. So, they have to emerge and find another shell more suitable to their size. When this happens within a community, it can, as we have seen, result is all out rioting as the crabs compete furiously for any new homes that may be up for grabs. Or simply to grab homes already occupied by others.
Some misguidedly, have taken to using plastic waste – bottle caps for example, for their homes. Unfortunately, they have problems vacating these premises on the due date and die within and decompose. In doing so, they send out pheromones to others of their ilk, unselfishly advertising that a residence is now vacant, but not how deadly that residence really is. The death toll resulting from such inadvertently misleading advertising is really quite horrific.
However, not all hermit crabs behave in a bohemian, bolshie manner. Those that have obviously been educated at Oxford and Cambridge will actually queue up decorously like Brits at a bus stop, according to size (the largest in front the littlest at the back) waiting for homes to be vacated one by one, once word goes out that this is due to happen. When the largest crab in the group decides he needs an even larger home, he vacates his, which is swiftly occupied by the next largest one, waiting in the queue and so a kind of domino process begins. Any crab that is left homeless, and soft and vulnerable alas usually gets eaten. As often happens however, someone will jump the queue and a free for all ensues.
There are apparently, over 800 species of hermit crabs in the world’s oceans, which means this property-grabbing lifestyle has quite caught on. They may be miniscule, or they may be as huge as the Coconut crab, which weighs more than four kilos, and can split a coconut with its claws, to say nothing of your head. One species, is in fact so confident that it no longer needs a shell for protection. Well, it may not but you may be decidedly better off with one, if you encounter it!
