i heart sanibel

Don’t you just love to come across something written in the sand with shells? Me too! Especially when it’s something like this…so sweet with that little heart. We found this beach art at Blind Pass last night along with lots of goodies to remind me why I heart Sanibel too….. and Captiva.

lots of shells in surf bp

The waves were still really choppy in the Gulf so Clark and I checked out Blind Pass yesterday late afternoon and started on the Captiva side to look for shells by the jetty. Not many shells were on the beach yet but this perfect ANGEL WING was just laying on the beach exactly like this…

Angel wing while beachcombing

We took that as a good sign so we brought out the big guns and started scooping with the larger shelling backhoes in the surf. Oh yaya! We started finding oodles of OLIVES and juvie FIGHTING CONCHS. This was in one of the first piles of scooped shells…

Scooped shells

The MANGROVE  SEED PODS were coming in along with the shells…

Mangrove seed pods in beach wash

One little SEA URCHIN…

Sea Urchin in shell crush

A Horsie! (I just noticed I have a habit of putting an “ie” on the things I think are really cute. LOL It’s like when you talk about your kitties or puppies- you get “that” voice and everything is so cute ;))

horse conch rough surf

Just like these two “cutie” sisters Jessica and Allysa from Sarasota who were having a great time filling up their shell bags. They both knew most of the names of their shells- such smart girls!

Jessica Alyssa finding shells bp

We walked back over to the Sanibel side and guess who we found! Local sheller Donnie (no really, his name already had the “ie” on it, I didn’t give him that pet name- LOL) who I mentioned in my post The Elite Threewhen his daughter found a JUNONIA and a SCOTCH BONNET in the same week.

Donnie Sanibel beach

 He gives most of his shell finds away but he did have a few keepers in his shell bag. Oh, and check out his fancy shelling shoes… they have toes!

donnie shells water shoes

 While we were on the Captiva side I took a video of Clark doing sort of a How-To on using the shelling backhoe but it is taking sooooo long to download. I’ll try to post it tomorrow. Until then, have a great weekend!

UPDATE: September 10, 2011- You can see the video of this day by clicking HERE.

seashells in waves Blind Pass Captiva