Hatching season

For Labor Day, my whole, huge, extended family would get together for a family reunion every year. I always remember playing in the sand at Pacific Beach, playing with sand crabs that were as big around as nickels. I didn't know how they got there, or anything else about them.

Sometime in April, we went to the beach and were walking in the sand. This is what we noticed.

They hatch in the spring, and are carried by current south. That's why they were so big at the end of August!
It's unbelievable how many there were. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. They looked like rice, just floating around, totally manipulated by the water. It was crazy feeling them squirm under our feet and between our toes!

Here are some more pictures of that day.

My lovely goof ball.

There's a little one burrowing into Conrad's fingers.

If you look closely, you can see all the tiny sand crabs.