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2012 Sanibel Coastal Cleanup
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As part of the Ocean Conservancy‘s 2012 International Coastal Cleanup, Dee Serage of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF) organized volunteers to pick up and document litter on our beaches and coastlines this past Saturday. So the beach on Sanibel from Blind Pass to Bowman’s is free and clear of any trash because of our fun little cleanup crew in the photo above from left to right… Susan (Soul Sister Susan), Daron who was our efficient record keeper, me, Super Sheller Clark, Judy, Grant, Cameron and Berringer.
We spread out and literally combed the beach.. or should I say “litteraly”.
We searched high on the beach for trash…
…and we searched low on the beach for litter. We had to leave these big shells piles for another day but couldn’t help but look for something unusual.
Berringer did find a few unusal shells. Oh, and remember the SPOTTED EAGLE RAY I showed on my last video? Clark had “spotted” the ray in the water and told everybody to come look at it but Berringer is the one who knew exactly what it was right away. “Look! It’s an EAGLE RAY!” (you see why I like him?)
He found a beautiful yellow ALTERNATE TELLIN pair…
And look at the bright purple color of this SOUTHERN HORSE MUSSEL !
It even has purple in the interior…
Grant found this very cool completely dried PUFFER FISH…
This is what I call cool BEACH BLING…
Grant also found this sweet little SEA URCHIN…
Yes, there were lots of shell piles like I showed you in the cyber shelling photo on my last post with but we were on a mission to pick up trash and we had a very long walk so we only picked up the cool unusual things that didn’t weigh much… like this ROSEATE SPOONBILL FEATHER! We rarely find these…
Clark brought home this aqua buoy. We couldn’t throw that away!
But back to the main reason we were there… to rid the beach of any trash. Cigarettes, plastic bottles, plastic caps, more and more plastic were the top items found but I was so surprised to see so many balloons with ribbons on the beach. Balloons are a huge NO-NO to bring to the beach! They can get swallowed or wrapped around wildlife so please never take balloons to the beach for any occasion.
Fortunately, our beaches aren’t terribly littered so I think we only filled up 7 fairly small bags which is not so bad for a 2 and 1/2 mile walk. But Clark didn’t stop there. He even saw trash thrown over the beach access boardwalk so he fished it out under the rail. Go Super Sheller Clark!
I’m sure yall do this already, but just a reminder while we are shelling… let’s pick up any trash and put it in our shell bag until we can find a trash can or dumpster to dispose of it. Okay, So… lets recap what we do as “shellers”. On our beach walks we can get exercise, find treasure, explore, learn about wildlife and the creatures of the sea AND save the planet AND spread peace on earth. LOL Yes! Shellers save the planet! We are the Super Shellers!
Shelling For Sunshine
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Through cloudy skies and and patchy rain, I was thrilled to find this bright beam of sunshine called a CHESTNUT TURBAN colored brilliant orange. I know it doesn’t look at all “chestnutty” but believe it or not that’s what it is.
My second fave find in the last few days is another ray of sunshine…. a COLORFUL MOON SHELL (or also called a GAUDY NATICA). This one seemed exceptionally colorful AND gaudy…
Clark and I were convinced that the out islands would be loaded with shells still from Tropical Storm Debby and the weather the last then so we hopped on our boat with some friends and headed out to Cayo Costa. I found more sunshine with a little HORSE CONCH candy!
Daron, Jacob and Berringer donned the snorkeling gear…
…And found a FLORIDA CONE!
There were pockets of seashells hidden around the tree roots in the high tide wrack line where we found some BABY’S EARS.
Everybody loves these tree roots! Susan and her son Berringer were no exception. It’s the perfect backdrop for photos.
Clark was busy working his magic with the shelling backhoe and pulled up lots of LETTERED OLIVES and a few TRUE TULIPS…
All in all, it was a really fun trip on the boat but it wasn’t at all “loaded with shells” like we thought. So after our boat ride, we stopped at Blind Pass Sanibel….where it was “loaded”. I found my 2 fave shells of the weekend (the orange TURBAN and the MOON above) within 10 minutes.
I was also fortunate to have met EJ who is a research associate with Department Of Environmental Sciences at UVA (where my nephew just graduated…with distinction!) , Hannah (an educator at UVA as well) and her mom Crystal (AL). It was fascinating to hear about EJ’s project to map the mangrove ecosystems of Sanibel and research the soils and sea grass beds along SouthWest Florida. What a fun job! Well he must have mapped out where the ALPHABET CONES would wash up because they were plucking them out right when I walked by…
Crystal showed me her fave find which was an unusual cluster of shells. It is a double CORRUGATE JEWLBOX, double KITTEN’S PAW, BARNACLES and a few sprouts of CORAL that cemented together to make a beautiful little shell bouquet.
While dodging the storm clouds for 3 days, here’s an assortment of the shells we kept (Clarkis saving the LETTERED OLIVES for next year’s 4th of July parade already). Need help identifying all of these shells? Check out my SEASHELL IDENTIFICATION page!
Snorkeling Sanibel
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The Gulf Of Mexico was crystal clear yesterday with only a slight breeze at Blind Pass so it was a perfect day to snorkel. Unfortunately, I only had time to stop and take this photo so I didn’t get to test the waters.
Aha! … But I did have time today! So my buddy Ellen and I headed for shelling at Blind Pass…
We met Lance, Krista, Amy and Mike (all from Ft Myers) shelling near the Captiva side of the pass…
They were filling their pockets and shell bags with WHELKS, FIGHTING CONCHS, OLIVES and check out this beautiful ROUGH SCALLOP Krista found…
Okay, I’ve shown you lots of different shelling contraptions but this one had me cracking up… big time! Kal made this “telescope backhoe” to reach those hard to get shells. He was having a competition with his family on naming it. LOL
It takes the whole family to show off this awesome tool.. Here’s Emma, Kalman, Anna Lee, Kal, Lee and Caroline from South Carolina. Hey Kal, what’s the winning name?
Super Sheller Clark better watch out because our friend Daron has been coming up with the best shell of the day lately.
He found this really nice big ALPHABET CONE with beautiful lettering.
I was so tickled with my two cones but Daron’s was bigger than both mine put together. I snorkeled all around Blind Pass today and while gave away most of my finds, these were my keepers. Oops! Other than that gorgeous LACE MUREX. That’s Ellen’s awesome find that I kept safe for her.
Did you see that sweet little ALPHABET CONE in the bottom of the last photo? I filmed that while I was snorkeling today. Here’s a video of some of the shells I collected… underwater! I bought a waterproof housing for my camera but I’ve been nervous to use it. Really, we’ve had some really strong currents lately so it’s not safe most days to snorkel at Blind Pass but today was an exceptionally calm day. So, I got out the waterproof case and I tested the waters (literally). It worked! Oh, and since it goes really fast, I slowed down the part where I find a WENTLETRAP. Yes! At Blind Pass, I found a monster WENTLTRAP! Enjoy the quick vid! 
PS- I’m sure you noticed the dredging barges in the background of my photos. Some of the pipes have been laid but they haven’t started pumping the sand/shells yet. I’ll let you know when I have more info.
Making Seashell Costumes For The Sanibel Parade 2012
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Happy 4th Of July! It was a beautiful day for the Junonia Jalopy to make an appearance in the Sanibel parade. And even more exciting was that our friends Susan (soul sister), Berringer, Jacob and Daron wanted to walk along side Clark and me in the Junonia Jalopy to show off their love for shelling too!
So Susan and I had a blast making seashell costumes…
We started by painting seashell designs on foam core board then cutting them out…
We made these to fit as a sandwich board type costume so we needed to make signs for the back side attached with ribbon (we found aqua ribbon with white stitching!) … so we made iLoveShelling signs and embellished them with a few shells of course…
We even found aqua buckets to hold our shells that we handed out to the crowd. How cute are they!!
Since the theme was “Sanibel #1 Vacation Destination” from the Frommer’s rating in this year, we decided to remind everybody that Sanibel is #1 Shelling Destination too!
Here are some other fantastic floats in the Sanibel parade like the Captiva Island Yacht Club float…
Cip’s restaurant…
I loooove this float by Tammie’s Total Care!
Take a look at this huge castle on Congress Jewelers float…
Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum had their float sporting their Great Cowrie Roundup…
Here’s Doc Ford’s float…
I wish I could have seen all of the floats because I heard there were so many creative ideas and lots of fun. Thank you Sharon from Cottages to Castles for sending me this photo of Susan walking the parade in her SAND DOLLAR costume… So cute!
We think we handed out around 700 shells this year. Now you know what we do with all of those shells we collect! Okay, did you notice something about the ALPHABET CONE Daron had on? Do you see letters?
Thanks Captain Brian for sending this last photo! Happy 4th!
Olive i Love Shelling
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LETTERED OLIVES were fascinating to watch on the beach this weekend as they etched letters in the sand for me to decipher their code. I unscrambled the letters and pieced them together (I’m crazy about those games!). Can you believe they said “i Love Shelling”? LOL All of these lines in the sand in the next photo are live OLIVES.
This is the close up of one of the OLIVES trying to communicate with me. (heehee)
The tide was so low this weekend (-0.6) from the full moon that seashells, BEACH BLING, and the sea life were exposed for all to see.
The live SAND DOLLARS were everywhere…
Just to make sure everybody remembers this, I’m quoting again from my April 7 post “Since there are so many live shells on the beaches right now, I just want to make sure you know that you can’t take any live shells, SAND DOLLARS, STARFISH and such. You should gently put it back where you found it or in deeper waters. Lots of people don’t know how to tell if a sand dollar is alive or not. Here’s the deal… if a SAND DOLLAR is brown and looks a little “furry”, that means it is happy and healthy so we need to let it live a long time …..so it can breed! This is what live SAND DOLLARS look like. See that “fur”? Those are his feet AND how he breathes. Cool, huh?”
This was my best find from the weekend. A big honkin perfect ALPHABET CONE! (notice I still have on my “spiritual line“)
My friends Dick and Mary found this huge HORSE CONCH! It’s laying on a men’s size flip flop to show how big it is…A whopper!
But the winners for the weekend are Daron and Susan who just moved to Sanibel! Now this is a house warming gift! A JUNONIA! Congratulations!!!
We also met some gals getting together in Sanibel for their college reunion and to find a place to refresh their passions and find the meaning of life. This is Linda, Bev, Carla, Evanne, Dana and Peg…
“Eat Pray Love” comes to Sanibel! LOL Right after I talked to these gals, this boy raced back and forth on the sand bar furthest from the shore like he was running on top of the water. Exhilarated. Free. Alone. Stopping every once in a while to examine a shell or some sort of SEA LIFE … then under the full moon, he started his race again.
