^Janny fidla! (Creole for fiddler crab)
These are all creatures and plants that I saw on the beach or in the shallow waters.
^This beat-up conch shell was serving as a hermit crab hotel.
Here's a live conch I found one day at low tide.
Look at its funny eyes!
One spot in the shallows always had a million hermit crabs.
^This is the only jellyfish I saw the whole time I was there.
Sea anemone tentacles have a neat feel to them, sort of like hops vines or a very smooth cat's tongue. 
^Needlefish swim right at the surface of the water and are very well camouflaged. I darkened this picture and increased the contrast a bit--in real life they're light silver and even harder to see.
^I saw a crab like this one but a little smaller feasting on the tentacles of a Portuguese Man o'War that had washed up. Doesn't seem like a pleasant meal but I guess their mouths are immune to the sting.
^Detail on the underside of a large starfish.
Tons of seagrasses and other plants grow in the water because it's so calm. There are breakers a few hundred yards off the shore, so the waves that roll in are as tiny as those you'd find on a lake.
Sandcrabs are incredibly fast, but I managed to corner this one away from its hole and got it to sit on my hand for a few seconds.
There weren't many large hermit crabs, and the ones I did find were very shy and cautious (maybe that's why they've lived to get so big). The hermits I found on land were mostly orange (or red and purple for the larger ones), and those in the ocean were blue and brown with red and cream bands on the ends of their legs.
