Crabs mating at Los Frailes beach

Today’s photo of the day is a shot of crabs mating at Los Frailes beach in Ecuador. During crab mating season on the coast in Ecuador, there is a ban on crab fishing – called veda in Spanish. We happened to be a Los Frailes, a beautiful beach that is park of Machalilla National Park in the province of Manabi, during the season. You could see thousands of crabs all over the rocks on the edges of the beach and I got this photo of these ones mating.
Los Frailes is a must-see beach if you are in Manabi, it’s very close to Puerto Lopez. Since this beach is part of the park, it can only be visited during day time hours and they are very strict about this. They also do a great job of making sure that the beach is kept clean and that people clean up and take their trash with them – which if you’ve visited other beaches in Ecuador you will know can be a problem.