What a spectacular sighting: the Umdloti crabs doing their thing at twilight; every time I’ve enjoyed a run or walk along south beach, a third of the way towards Umhlanga, they’d caught my attention. I’ve never seen these types of crabs along the north beach, and I wonder why…

Last evening, with the perfect weather, I couldn’t resist taking along my camera and doing my best to capture them running in to the water, burying themselves as deep as possible in the sand when the flow of the water hits them (be prepared to get drenched in the process), and some are still in the exact same place as the water ebbs, while others tumble into the next flow of the wave. A few of them had Portuguese man o wars (aka blue bottles) wrapped around their claws and appeared to be munching on them.

It proved a challenge, hence the not so sharp photos, trying to capture the little critters as they kept dancing around as if on a stage, performing for each other.

The setting sun turned the sky over the ocean pink and orange and made for stunning moments worth holding on to…