Marco Scotch Bonnet seashell

Scotch Bonnet

Looky what I found!! A gorgeous 2  1/4 inch SCOTCH BONNET! Woot! Woot! I’ve only found pieces of these delicate shells before so this was a biggy find for me. Yippee! It was so exciting.

Scotch Bonnet aperture

Scotch Bonnet aperture

Clark and I had never shelled around Marco Island, Florida (about 90 minutes south of Sanibel) before so when we were invited to go on a friend’s boat around the island we jumped at the chance. There were plenty of sand bars exposed because of the extremely low tide so we anchored out and waded in to a couple of different islands (just glad we made it back).

Dirty Scotch Bonnet aperture

I was so excited to show Clark my find then witnessed his face turn green with envy. Fifteen minutes later, I heard him howl with laughter. What? What could he have found that could beat this? His own SCOTCH BONNET!

two scotch bonnets

Clark’s scotch bonnet on the left and mine on the right

The same thing happened with the ROSE MUREX yesterday… I was so excited to find an uncommon shell and minutes later, he finds one to match it. We both laughed in amazement.

Marco Florida Cones

Florida Cones

Clark found the deep orange FLORIDA CONE and I found the other one. Notice the pronounced colorful tips on both of these shells.

Marco Horse Conchs

Juvenile horse conchs

I found me some candies too! Love, love ’em. Always a good day finding a handful of my “candy corn”.

Marco Alphabet cones

Alphabet cones

Ta Da! We even found these ALPHABET CONES.

Lori with horse conch

Lori with horse conch

This is our friend Lori with a huge empty HORSE CONCH. It’s a beauty!

Shell Pile in Marco

The shell pile

This pile is where I found most of my baby HORSE CONCHS and a FLORIDA CONE, ALPHABET CONE, LACE MUREX and a bunch of TOP SHELLS (I’ll show pictures tomorrow… whew- I’m still tired from that big, long day).

Amy Tripp Marco

Amy Tripp holding a tulip

I was also thrilled to meet photographer and shell enthusiast Amy Tripp from Marco.

Marco gang

Our Marco Boating Gang

Sunrise boating

Boating at sunrise