(03/19/26)

Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer ​

​Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2026 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
"Moonlight Murderer"
It was now mid-June. As of two weeks previous, the wet season had arrived. The locals called the rains “sky-juice,” or “Jesus-waata,”* and the generous showers had renewed and softened the desiccated earth, bringing forth all manner of grasses and flowering trees. Although now the humidity would be oppressive for months, it had still been a visual delight to see myriad colorful blossoms earlier that afternoon on the way to the Base. The dazzling yellow Cortez tree always bloomed first, emerging even before the rains started. But now, the full riot of multicolored bougainvillea, hibiscus, ixora, Golden shower, and poor man’s orchid dotted the countryside. Dominating them all, were the majestic royal Poinciana trees, with their flaming crowns contrasted against  the strikingly blue sky.  
After visiting the Officer's Mess at Airport Camp, I drove south, heading back to Belize City, now in the dark, to stay the night at a cheap Chinese hotel. By now, I had established even more business clients for my carvings, and needed to restock the gift shop the following day at the Fort George, and maybe also at the Caribbean Hotel.
Even now, in 1981, there was still profound darkness on this stretch of the Northern Highway, with no man-made lighting to spoil the perfect inky blackness. However, on this particular night, I was overwhelmed by the brilliance of the full moon, spreading its lustrous blue-white light across the landscape.

​Ignoring the heat, I rolled down my window, and inhaled the delicate fragrance—a mix of frangipani, night‑blooming jasmine, and gardenia wafting on the night air. As there were no other vehicles on the road in either direction, I turned off my headlights on a whim, and allowed the bright silvery luminescence to guide me. I kept driving, though very slowly. The moon easily lit my way. 
Suddenly, I saw a strange visual on the road ahead, accompanied by a disturbing crunching under my wheels, one that I could both hear and feel. Similar to my experience with the “Lorry in the Dark” (see Episode 73) my brain could not grasp what my eyes were seeing. It was as though the road itself was alive, and somehow drifting across itself, in a ghostly crawling motion. 
Quickly, I turned my headlights back on; the mad crunching continued. In the direct light of the beams, a weird amorphous shape now also revealed sharp edges. It was as though I were observing a living jigsaw puzzle, with individual pieces simultaneously semi-connected, but also separate. This was a seething mass, something alive, moving over the road in dense, coordinated waves. Immediately, I  pulled over and parked. Suddenly, I knew that the crunching was death, and I had been a mass-murderer. 
The spectral creatures were pale tan or beige, some muted in shades of gray and lavender. But most were an intense, steel-blue, their pallid, jagged, moon-reflective appendages​, waving in the air, like a crowd at a rock concert. When I opened  car door, the overhead light from the cab shone on perhaps two dozen enormous blue crabs. One had a seven-inch carapace. He reared up on his hind legs, looking at me, both claws held menacingly in defensive posture.​
At the time, I had been unfamiliar with the term “crab-walk,” and therefore, had no frame of reference. I learned later that I had been witnessing the annual migration of the blue land crab. It is a surge of Cardisoma guanhumi from the sea, triggered by the first rainy-season tidal‑moon, a post-spawning phenomenon. After the females had released their eggs, the crabs were leaving the coastal flats and moving back inland, en masse, to reach their inland burrows in the mangroves and marshes. 
According to my research, that particular stretch of the Northern Highway—specifically between Belize City and the road leading to 
Airport Camp—is prime blue‑crab habitat, and historically, the man-made road cuts straight across one of their major migration corridors.
Regardless of the scientific explanation, I will always remember that captivating scene with an artistic eye—a magnificent rendering, painted by Mother Nature in majestic shades of ethereal blue, and bathed in luminescent moonlight. Nevertheless, I will also mourn the hundreds of crabs that were inadvertently mashed  under my wheels that night. Myriad deaths, caused by me—the invasive species. ​
* Old-timers like me, still tend to refer to rain as "sky juice," or "Jesus-water." 
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