We've had a nice cold snap that brought in some great lines of shells this week just in time for our iLoveShelling beach combing adventure to Cayo Costa island with Captiva Cruises. Okay, I know.... I should actually say "chilly snap" instead of "cold snap" since it was in the 60s but with the wind and being in the boat, it feels great to break out the jackets in Florida. So we bundled up and hit the beach just like twin sisters Debbi, Darlene from MA who found SUNRAY VENUSES, ANGEL WINGS, an ALPHABET CONE and lots of other treasures. Those were the same favorites that Pam and Mark from Baltimore found too. Joe, Liliana (NY) and Tim (Michigan) filled their shells buckets to stock up on some fun with art projects for the winter. I love days when there are lots of BEACH BLING that washes up on the shore as well... so lucky! A CRUCIFIX SHELL. We even found a live SEA CUCUMBER washed up on the beach so we snapped a photo then returned it to the …
Sea Cucumber
Sanibel Weekend Wonderland
After seeing so many empty shells at Blind Pass at the beginning of the weekend, we wanted to see what Tarpon Bay Rd Beach access looked like with the extreme low tide. This beach looked so different and we saw so many live shells like in the first photo with the live FIGHTING CONCHS every where. We also saw this LIGHTNING WHELK making a meal out of this ATLANTIC GIANT COCKLE. He had his body (the black part) completely inside the COCKLE shell eating the meat for dinner. Wild. This COCKLE SHELL was on the losing side of this fight as well since an APPLE MUREX was making COCKLE soup out of this guy... I also saw several SEA CUCUMBERS stranded on the low tide sand bars...which I dug a little trench for this guy since he seemed still so healthy. I was so thrilled by seeing all of the living creatures (oodles of live OLIVES as well), I pretty much came home without any shells. I say "pretty much"... because I had Super Sheller Clark with me. I may have come home empty handed but …
Beach Bling Is A Wonderful Thing
If you want to learn the types of seashells, sea life, vegetation and what the different kinds of mollusk egg cases look like and live in the Gulf Of Mexico, you've got your chance this week. It all washed up on the beach on the East end of Sanibel. You can see it for miles. So many mollusk egg casings and PEN SHELLS galore! MERMAID PURSES! Well, they are really SKATE EGG CASES... HORSE CONCH EGG CASINGS (I shot this with the Nikon J1)... WHELK EGG CHAINS... Lots of CRABS too. This one is a STONE CRAB... My friend Jane called me and said she found a dead crab shell on the beach that had a NAUTILUS shell pattern. She has found a NAUTILUS before so she would know! Wanna see? CLICK HERE . So I went to see this crab...and it does have that pattern! It's a FLAME BOX CRAB... I also saw lots of SEA WHIPS. This was the first time I've ever found a WHITE SEA WHIP... We normally just find the purple SEA WHIPS but when I went to see Jane's FLAME BOX CRAB she showed me …
