rainbows and seashells cayo costa

A magical rainbow appeared on the beach at Cayo Costa after we stepped off our Captiva Cruises boat. I thought that was an amazing welcome but there was more…. Mother Nature rolled out a beautiful carpet of sea shells for us too!

a beach filled with shells

There were so many shells to look through, I walked right past this absolutely perfect SCOTCH BONNET!

scotch bonnet cayo costa kirk

I heard a gasp about 10 yards behind me… Kirk from Oregon plucked this beautiful treasure out of the wrack line I had just combed through. Wow!

kirk find scotch bonnet day trip sanibel

There were so many shells to scan over, it was almost overwhelming (oh, but such a good overwhelming!)…

seashells on a beach

So let me show you this awesome group of shellers on the boat. It may have been cold, but shellers don’t care- We always make the best of it!

pam rambo cold captiva cruise january

On the Captiva Cruises boat ride over to Cayo Costa, I passed around a big bucket so everybody could pick out a “good luck” shell (a choice of FIGHTING CONCH, LIGHTNING WHELK, COCKLE or MUREX all of which Clark and I have found in the last month or so). I talked to Stone, Ian, Kirk and Deb who all picked out one shell then Ian told me he was really wanting to find a SHARKS EYE. Hmmmmm… well its hard to find one particular shell when you are beach combing, I always say you should enjoy whatever is put in front of you by Mother Nature.

stone ian kirk deb oregon shelling cruise

Maybe that “good luck” shell worked! Ian found a gorgeous SHARKS EYE!

ian sharks eye sanibel day cruise trip

And not only that, he found an ALBINO LIGHTNING WHELK.

sharks eye albino whelk cayo costa

Nico from New York City found a perfect nice sized PAPER FIG…

nico new york city shelling cayo costa florida

Debbie and Frances came down from Sarasota for the day to join us on the cruise. Nice to meet y’all and nice finds!

debbie frances sarasota shelling day trip

We always seem to find ANGEL WINGS at Cayo Costa and it’s always fun to see the three different types that wash up. From left to right… a TRUE ANGEL WING, FALLEN ANGEL WING and a FALSE ANGEL WING.

true fallen false angel wing shells

Ron found this very cool LIGHTNING WHELK. After we took photos, he put it back in the water because there were so many living creatures in and around this shell.

ron finds large encrusted whelk

This is a closeup of the opening. There’s just a a smidge of the HERMIT CRAB’S claw showing but he was alive and well inside there. But look at the rest of it! There are live SLIPPERS, BARNACLES, TUNICATES and even a GULF OYSTER DRILL living on this shell. It’s a little village!

hermit crab living in mollusk encrusted whelk shell

Cheryl got lucky she found a completely dried STARFISH in the high wrack line. That was on her shell bucket list!

cheryl finds starfish cayo costa

Jerry was not messing around with some little silly net. He brought out a gigantor net! LOL He scooped up three empty double SUNRAY VENUS CLAMS…

jerry with shell net sunday venus clams

They are sooooo beautiful…

sunray venus clams cayo costa

Jessica (with the Island Inn Resort) brought her big camera since she wanted to find some nice photographs. She ended up putting away her camera so she could pick up more shells. Ha!

jessica finds shells on florida beach

On our way back, I saw GoodWillShelling giving SAND DOLLARS to a family visiting from the Netherlands since he and SarahTheShellAnimal found so many in the area they were shelling. So nice!

will gives out sand dollars captiva cruises

Our weather in the last week has gone from low 50s (on this boat trip) to low 80s this weekend and we expect another slight cold snap again this week. This cold weather is providing great shelling! This morning I went to Gulfside City Park where I found a few WHELKS  and CONCHS then went to Blind Pass Sanibel where yet another huge shell pile has formed. This week should be exshellent shelling again!

shelling adventures trips by pam