It was not an uncommon sight to see whole families burrowing on the beaches on a moonlit night during the summer months, looking for sand eels. The old custom of llymreita (collecting sand eels) was practised generally during the small hours of the first night of the ebb tide. Working in teams of two or three, spades or sickles were used to burrow in the sand, and the eels, when exposed, were quickly caught and put into buckets or cans.