There was some discussion of what their natural conditions were in relation to how near they live to the salt water.
There has been some information circulating about them from one of the hermit crab wholesalers who maintains that they live inland and that they only need access to salt every few weeks. I have a suspicion that the latter stemmed from either the wholesaler being too lazy to provide the right conditions and seeking to justify it (he doesn't look after his crabs correctly in the least) or trying to make hermit crabs appear lower maintenance than they really are, which he does with every aspect of their care (he use to say they never pooped!!!)
Wodesorel (misspelled that awful but I fixeded it
) said something the prompted me to go looking for info on the other wholesalers/harvesters and I came across a Department of Fisheries article outlining the collection of hermit crabs, impact on the environment etc.It states the following: "Coenobita variabilis is distributed across northern Australia, from Exmouth Gulf to northern Queensland
(Jones and Morgan 1994). Individuals occur in the intertidal zone and up to 100 m from the shoreline.
They are common in mangroves, but also occur in sandy and rocky areas."
100m is about 320 ft, which is a pretty average span of sand on a beach here.
Here is the link -quoted text is from pg 42
http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/esd/esd008/esd0008.pdf
(The bit about the mangroves makes me wonder if they'd like some mangrove mud but man o man that stuff smells so bad...)
But yes, everyone's entitled to their own way of taking care of their crabs. If they thrive alright with restricted salt water access, then it isn't a big deal. 
