I once read a mystery called Tip on a Dead Crab about a gambler. The title refers to the gambler’s decision to place a bet on a crab race after someone gave him a tip that one of the crabs was dead.
Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a crab race, and an annual one has been organized for children in New Shoreham. It is the cutest thing ever.
Here you see people catching the crabs from a dock, a little boy wearing his yellow crab-race hat, crabs marked with different colors (pick your own to cheer, win an ice cream), the wooden. blue race track, and the crabs scattering as fast as they can.
I always wondered whether crabs were somehow supposed to race in a straight line like a horse — crabs being what they are. But no. Here’s how it works. The master of ceremonies dumps a bucket full of crabs on a racing board, and when the starting signal is given, he sweeps the bucket off the crabs, and away they go.
The winning crab in Sunday’s race made a beeline sideways and fell off the edge as everyone urged their own crab to go, go go.
Neat! Like the painted shells as well. Races like this are delightful,when the children were in school ,some of the teachers had the children find turtles ,then had a turtle race.
Oh, a turtle race would be cute, too.
The kids are doing this every summer on the beach. But they just let them go from one point on the sand into the sea again.
Erik told me about that, too.
I love these strange, very local, and bizarre traditions!
I like bizarre traditions, too. I once attended an outhouse race in Minnesota.