Palapa #16

Choosing where to sit at the beach can be confusing, so I always pick a favorite number, today it was #16. I pulled the beach chair into the shadiest portion to protect my pearly pale pegs, draped my sarong over the headrest, pulled out my Kindle, and settled in for an hour or so of vacating. (Isn't that the verb for vacation?) After a bit, I glanced down and spied two eight-legged neighbors... One welcome, the other, not so much. Perched on the leg of the plastic table, where my umbrella drink was also perched, was a small spider.
He looked very much like the ones at home we call 'jumping spiders,' so I watched him carefully, daring him to come closer. He crept down a few inches, to the right a few inches, down a little more. I think he was trying to avoid the brisk sea breeze. Suddenly, he did indeed jump away from the table leg... Toward me! Fortunately, the sea breeze caught him, and he landed in the sand and scurried off.
I thought perhaps my other visitor would chase him down for a snack, but he was unperturbed. Wedged in between the post of the palapa and the ash can, the crab was busy watching me watch him (her?). This was not a little ghost crab or a fiddler crab, not sure what type it was, really. Slightly smaller than a Dungeness crab, I suspect he was of the tasty variety, hiding from the shore birds. Just as I was wondering how to tell where he was looking with those 'eyes-on-a-post,' he started walking. Slowly, he crept out (sideways, of course) and made a circuit of the ash can. He stopped and stared at me for a few moments, ducked under the shade of my lounge chair, then took up post again - literally. At the base of the post again... watching me with those round, black eyes.
We peacefully coexisted until the sun started creeping up on my toes, threatening to scorch them. I took my leave of my friend from Palapa #16, and dunked my grateful toes into the Caribbean, followed swiftly by the rest of me.
Ah, vacation...