Cornwall<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n\n “When the conditions were right, I swam from St Ives beach.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It was quite a long swim around some rocks. They were in about three metres of water and that was high tide.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It was so shallow you could see them from the surface, you didn’t even need to dive down.\n<\/p>\n
\n “They gather about this time of year around summertime to moult their shells.\n<\/p>\n
\n “The reason they gather in large numbers is to protect themselves from predators, because their new shells are super soft, so they’re vulnerable to predators trying to eat them.”\n<\/p>\n
\n ![]()
Heather Hamilton was amazed by the experience (Image: Heather Hamilton \/ SWNS)\n<\/p>\n
\n Heather, who’s been snorkelling her whole life, describes the spectacle as “wonderful.”\n<\/p>\n
\n “I think it was very special, I’ve been lucky I’ve seen it before, but not in these bigger numbers,” she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It was a bit overwhelming, there was a lot going on.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It was quite shallow water so you don’t want to kick your fin and then visibility go bad.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Heather says the crabs pose absolutely no risk to people.\n<\/p>\n
\n “They’re not right in the shallows, so you’re unlikely to step on one,” she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n “But their shells will be washing up on beaches, and often people mistake the phenomenon for hundreds of dead crabs.”\n<\/p>\n
\n ![]()
Spider crabs in Cornwall (Image: Heather Hamilton \/ SWNS)\n<\/p>\n
\n Heather set up her Instagram account to share the wonders of the UK seas, and her following has grown quickly.\n<\/p>\n
\n “There’s a stigma of UK seas being murky and not a lot of life, but there’s so much to see and so much habitat to explore,” she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I’ve become a bit obsessed with sharing it with people.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I rarely go into the sea without my camera now.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Heather has seen and documented all kinds of underwater spectacles, from sea salps to octopus blooms.\n<\/p>\n
\n “My best diving experiences have all been in UK seas,” she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heather Hamilton, 26, made the discovery when she was swimming from a beach near St Ives. As a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-724862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}