A few years ago, I came across this video for the annual crab migration on Christmas Island. I'm not sure if it was on Planet Earth or some other National Geographic video, but it fascinated me.
Over 45 million red crabs slowing moving in waves across the island to get to the Indian Ocean to spawn. Weeks later, the surviving babies – if they don't get eaten by predators – return to land and do the same walk their mothers did weeks before.
It's the circle of life. Fascinating.
Here's a cute video Faye asked me to shoot for her grade 1/2 class:
That is one aspect of Christmas Island, which after spending two days getting to know the locals, seems to be culturally and politically embattled. There's a dark history to that island, but out of that is a very tight-knit community comprising of mainly Malaysian and Chinese descendants.
There are memorials for the two shipwrecks encountered on the island, the worst being in 2010 when a boatload of asylum-seeks crashed into the rocks.
For anyone who hasn't read this excellent look into asylum-seekers in Christmas Island by the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-refugee-boat-lift-to-christmas-island.html?_r=0http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-refugee-boat-lift-to-christmas-island.html?_r=0
And people on the island will offer different views of asylum seekers, but they prefer to promote their tourism, which can be difficult – Virgin only flies there a few times a week; many places that would normally be two-star accommodations can jack up prices to 5-star rates because a) it's expensive to get commodities on a remote island b) there aren't a lot of places to stay because many spots have already been rented out by detention centre workers.
But island has its beautiful, protected red crabs (It's a $5,000 fine if you deliberately run over one in your car or snatch one up to eat) and it can be its biggest asset.
Because my flight was cancelled on Friday, that enabled me to stay another night, meet some locals at a barbecue and take up an offer with the parks ranger to get on his boat at 4 a.m. and take a look for red crabs spawning. It's an event that doesn't happen every day and is very dependent on rainfall. That morning, however, they were spawning.
Wow.
It looked like a moving carpet of red clinging to the rocky cliffs. Females carried a brown sac containing 100,000 eggs. When they are ready to drop the package to the ocean, they lift up their front claws and do an Elvis-like hip shake and their unborn babies drop into the water. They have to be careful to not fall into the water, though, as they cannot swim and will drown.
It's an amazing process and I'm glad I got to see it. I feared with climate change, perhaps one day, Mother Nature would just stop the process. I waned to see it just in case she does.
We also saw eight dolphins swimming that day. Rob, the ranger, towed a line for the snorkelers to hold onto while he slowly drove the boat near the dolphins, so they could get a better look.
Still deciding whether the loss of time in Sydney was worth it, along with all the hassle from Virgin, but I'm happy to scratch the red crabs off my bucket list.
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