Personal information about my dancing skills were leaked to a celebrated chef recently and he’s been holding me to ransom ever since. So, I’ve decided to come clean. As avid readers might know, I lay claim to possessing a heavy metal heart, but there was a time when I stole hearts as a breakdancer. That’s right. I’d pop and lock, duck and dive, caterpillar and moonwalk, but as the said chef was informed, if I bust a move nowadays it’s during the small hours and usually without clothing.

These days, with my top-heavy dad bod I’m more likely to pop a hip than pop and lock. And while my duck and dive may be more belly splat, and my caterpillar like someone salted a slug, I can say M. Jackson’s moonwalk has nothing on the AC Hucksteper.

Anyway, not long after I land on the wharf in Mooloolaba in the Sunshine State to meet Fraser Isle Spanner Crab’s chief seafood spruiker Jason Simpson, he reveals this incredible crab is quite the expert moonwalker, too. “They could out-moonwalk anything in the sea, mate,” he laughs. In fact, it’s one of the few crabs on earth that can walk backwards and forwards – rather than sideways. The bright orange-red crustacean looks like the offspring of a lobster, tarantula and body builder. Add devil horns and ferocious looking claws and there’s simply nothing quite like it.

The Sunshine Coast is the heart of spanner crab country – though they’re found all the way from northern NSW to 700km up the east coast. “Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island,” says Simpson. “And sand is the most important thing for a spanner crab.”

A predator, rare for crabs, which mostly scavenge, that lives in depths of water from 20-100m, spanner crabs use their hind legs to bury themselves backwards into the sand. With just their eyes protruding, they lay in wait to ambush their prey.

“He only comes up for food, to fight or to mate,” he says. Who knew I had so much in common with a spanner crab? The claws are a top-of-the-line scallop shucking implement.

Thin enough to get between the shells and snip the adductor mussel, but strong enough to dissect a prawn, too. This luxurious diet results in the softest and sweetest crab flesh on the planet.

The Queensland Spanner Crab Fishery is a single target fishery that was among the first to be certified sustainable under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Now, it’s the only spanner crab fishery that consistently and sustainably supplies large crabs to market.

Fraser Isle Spanner Crab, owned by Les and Lyn Apps, is a single-fisherman fleet that heads out in a small boat around 2am and sets up as the sun rises. In peak season the skipper will bring a deck hand, but mostly it’s small catch. Fishermen lay gauzed metal trays – known as dillies – connected by a long line, at 30m intervals on the sea floor with a bait bag attached. The crab seeks out the bait and jumps on the dilly. If they get spooked their gut reaction is to bury themselves. As a result, their back legs get caught in the mesh, which holds the crab until the fisherman pull them up an hour later. Some crabs jump on the trap, have a bite and move on. It’s only the ones that try to bury themselves that get caught.

“They get a fighting chance that’s for sure,” says Simpson. A good haul would be half a dozen crabs on a dilly.