new captiva welcome sign

I saw several work trucks in the Blind Pass parking lot so, of course my first thought was that this was the first sign for the dredging of the pass to begin. Then I saw… literally… a “sign”. A new “Welcome” sign! The crew at R.S Walsh landscaping couldn’t have been nicer and sure did a fine job posing as our welcoming committee. Thanks guys! (hmmm, should it have said “WHELKome”?)

blind pass shell pile captiva

Still no dredging equipment but there is a fresh new pile of shells and big chunks of CORAL. Heather and Karak found a great piece…

heather karak captiva coral shells

I love this piece. It’s a CORAL Kiss!

coral shaped kiss captiva

So talking about CORAL, look at this big honking hunk…

Wendy coral lions paw shells

Oh yaya, You see those ALPHIES, FLATS, deep red TULIP, yellow HORSIE, and the SHARK’S EYE. But I know you had to spot that sweet little LION’S PAW…

lions paw coral

These were all found by Wendy and her husband Kevin (no, he didn’t get in the pic) from Blind Pass to Bowman’s this week.

wendy lions paw

After showing me the other shells, she pulled out this mac daddy HORSE CONCH… niiiiice!

large horse conch wendy

I saw Shelling Sistah Janet from Georgia finding some goodies too. I saw her last year about this same time with her good friend Betty Jo (Hi Betty Jo!).

Janet GA shells captiva

Leah (from Clearwater area) posted this next photo on the i Love Shelling Facebook page and said

Yesterday I found my second whole (well almost completely whole) Junonia up at the beach renourishment site at Sand Key. Here it is with my other fave finds of the weekend.”

Oh My!! Along with two, count them, two JUNONIAS, she found a SCOTCH BONNET and half a LIONS PAW. That for me is The Elite Three. And that’s not it! COLORFUL MOONS, ALPHABET CONES (yes, I call them ALPHIES), and look at the brown color of that OLIVE. What kind of OLIVE is that?

leah sand key shells

These shells were found at Sand Key which is up in Clearwater, Florida about 2 1/2 hours drive north from Sanibel. Leah says they are doing dredging there right now. Wow! This is the conversation on the Facebook page (click on it to enlarge)…

Leah shell convo facebook

So if this is any “sign” of what’s to come from our dredging project on Captiva and Sanibel, this will be exciting! Yes, I’d like to find another JUNONIA but I would especially like to find an ATLANTIC MORUM like Leah did. Here’s a closer shot of the MORUM sandwiched in between the JUNONIA and GOLDEN OLIVE (that’s quite an impressive sandwich) .

Atlantic morum seashells