I’d like to offer an apology to the Atlantic Ghost Crab whose burrow I borrowed to give me a head-start on digging a sufficiently deep hole to anchor the pole of our beach umbrella. Because the ocean was rough, and the water cold the last week in June, I spent more time sitting in my beach chair under the umbrella than I did in the water. Hence, the photo below.
The Ghost Crab’s Latin name is ocypod (swift footed) quadrapod (four pairs of walking leg plus a pair of white claws).Equipped with eyes that rotate 360o, and those swift feet, it’s hard to get a picture of them.
These little critters (their shells aren’t more than 3” wide) create burrows 4’ deep and just out of the reach of the shore break. This one seemed to spend the entire afternoon fighting a against the forces of wind and waves, a never-ending battle to keep the sand out of the burrow. I was reminded of the futility of trying to keep sand out of the vacation rental.
The morning that I finally had the patience to wait, camera at the ready, to take this photo, I was reminded of a prayer by Brother Lawrence, “O Lord of pots and pans and things, since I have no time to be a great saint by doing lovely things, or watching late with Thee, or dreaming in the dawn light, or storming Heaven’s gates, make me a saint by getting meals,
and washing up the plates”…and burrowing in the sand.
“Nor is it needful that we should have great things to to…We can do little things for God.” (Brother Lawrence, 17th century) ~ Anne
Wayfinding 