Hermit crabs are found on most beaches, tide pools and rocky shorelines of the Salish Sea – they’re pretty much everywhere you visit with your boat. They’re not hermits, but live nearby to a many others, sometimes a hundred of their own kind. Hermits crabs have some of the most interesting lives of any sea creature. It’s a crab without a crab shell, so they must use other empty shells for temporary homes, often the shell of a sea snail. Other shells such as turbans, periwinkles and even plastic cups or tin cans work, but whatever it is, it has to fit the current size of the crab, and be portable enough so they can carry it around. Too roomy and the crab isn’t safe.

Too small, the crab can’t get in it. As the crab grows, it has to upgrade its digs to a shell with a bit more space, and competition can get fierce. Sometimes it’s a fight to the death for the new home, something like a real estate bidding war but with claws. Imagine a section of beach where a hundred hermit crabs are competing for homes and males are courting females – they sometimes actually pick the ladies up and carry them around. Sometimes everyone changes shells at once, because, well, when one is vacant, the next crab has a look. It’s the stuff movies are made of, don’t you think?

Larry Eifert paints and sails the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.