Archive for Cone
When The Seashells Come Rolling In
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The islands get happy. The strong winds and rain that belted the islands the past few days are paying off with seashells! The shells are rolling in and piling up all along the beaches of Captiva. The first person I saw this morning was Michelle from Toronto with her 2 huge LIGHTNING WHELKS…
Look at this huge ALPHABET CONE and KING’S CROWN in her shell jug….
Then I heard a “Woohoo!” from somebody. It was Lois from PA …
with a perfectly beautiful SCOTCH BONNET in her hand…
Okay, this is really cool. Get this….She told me she has been shelling for 40 years and that she has kept a life list of shells she has found. She has 347 different types of shells on her life list. You hear that yall? You can start counting your shell finds to have a shell life list of your own if you want.
Charity from Ohio was finding lots of WHELKS…
Get a load of this big honkin chunk-a CORAL she found too…
Joyce from Long Island, NY shows us her FLORIDA CONE and big shell bag filled with goodies.
Look at Loretta from Texas with her great piece of WORM ROCK (and her cutie iLoveShelling hat!!!) …
photo by Diana Taylor
I saw great shells along every stretch of beach on Captiva today and heard that someone found a nice size LION’S PAW right in front of Captiva Island Yacht Club. I also heard the Sanibel was rocking too!
I haven’t even gone through all of my photos or much less taken photos of my own finds from today but I will hopefully get to that tomorrow….if I’m not too busy finding new treasures! Enjoy the shelling whether you are on the coast or doing a little fun cybershelling.
A Golden Day Boating Around Marco
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Our friends John and Jane strapped a Zodiac dinghy to the top of their car on Saturday and invited us to join them for a boating adventure down to Marco Island. Yes! We are always ready for a shelling expedition.
The whole day was golden…
Literally! Both John and Clark found GOLDEN OLIVES!
When we all got back to the boat, everybody was showing off their best finds and both guys held out their hands holding the GOLDEN OLIVES…
Look at this huuujah ANGEL WING Clark found. It fills my whole hand…
This was the first ALPHABET CONE John found for the day.
These are Jane’s FLORIDA CONES. These are pretty golden too!
Here are the rest of her best finds. Yes! She found a JUNONIA! It’s broken on one side but it’s still a JUNONIA and it might be a good candidate for making a necklace. Congrats Jane!
We boated over to another island (Kice) where I was taking a photo of a nice 10 inch old crusty HORSE CONCH I found on the low tide sand bar…
I heard Clark yell and start waving his arms. Oh no, he di-ant! Another one? He couldn’t have found another you-know-what. I looked to see how far away he was since I was way out on the sand bar. See that little speck? That’s how far he was from me.
Okay,..you might want to avert your eyes if you’ve had a bad day or just can’t stand the thought of Clark finding yet another J….. uh…. I can’t even say it. To show me where he found it, he had it sitting right where it was when he walked up. Here… see for yourself.
Really? How come I didn’t look there first? The man is a shell magnet. Here is a close up of his nearly perfect JUNONIA (just the tip is missing). I want to find one! Not that I’m jealous…. oh, geez. Of course I’m jealous! Oh I’m happy for Jane and “him” too…. I guess. 
It even has a golden color to it too!
You know I’m just kidding about being upset I didn’t find the big J. How could I when I found so many beautiful shells on such an awesome day? Here are some of our other golden treasures…like candy!
TOP SHELLS…
BRUISED NASSAS…
TAMPA TURRIDS…
DUSKY CONES…
and even a cool BRYOZOAN COLONY…
It took us less than 1 1/2 hours drive time to get to our island hopping adventure in Marco aboard “our” little dinghy. Here’s the happy crew…
PS- I popped off some of those crusty barnacles to uncover the shell of that HORSE CONCH I found out the sand bar. It’s beautiful! I found a home for it on my outside steps as a happy welcome to our Shell Shack.
Yee Haw, A Lion’s Paw!
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As soon as I saw this huge LION’S PAW, I wanted to grab it and run down the beach. Unfortunately for me, I had to remain calm and admire it in the hands of the guy who found it… Bob from California.
He couldn’t believe his luck when he found it on a sand bar off West Gulf Drive this morning. He pointed out the nodules were broken off but then we all said “who cares!”. That’s a fantastic find.
Congrats, Bob!
I also saw local sheller Liz with some killer finds of her own… a FLORIDA CONE, TRUE TULIP, FLAT SCALLOP and a perfect SCOTCH BONNET with great color.
I think the cooler weather was bringing lots of the locals to the beach this weekend. We saw our friend Jean collecting COCKLE shells to line a walking path in her yard. Good idea!
Shelling guide Louise Alt from Waterwoman Adventures was shelling with her trusty first mate Darla. I always love to run into Louise!
Jane was shelling off East Gulf Drive for black SCALLOPS to make a frame for her husband John’s picture…
Darlene (Pine Island) found this 7 inch LIGHTNING WHELK on the sand bar at Blind Pass…
Barbara from Long Island, NY had just gotten started shelling for the day and found a nice SHARKS EYE…
April from PA loves the WORM ROCK like I do…
Yep, I can say “Yee Haw!” for Bob and all of the other successful shellers this weekend. There were some mighty good seashells out there for the pickin’. 
Mingle With Jingles
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Seashell treasures come in all sizes and colors that can be overlooked so easily. I had to remember that because I was only finding lots of broken shells and live shells this weekend but not the Sanibel Six or anything close. Then I realized that the beach was looking a little different…. a bit darker. I looked a little closer to see there were gobs of JINGLES washing in but instead of being the usual white, yellow or orange (my fave), they were the black ones.
They look like deep, smokey gems to me so I went a little crazy picking them up.
This is how many live FIGHTING CONCHS there were at low tide…
Clark found a live white FIGHTING CONCH. This might be called an albino even though it’s got a little color.
But maybe I should just call it albino-ish.
Even though I found lots of broken shells, I found a really good broken shell… piece of a LION’S PAW.
That still doesn’t come close to the beautiful ALPHABET CONE that 9 year old Zenith (MN) found. Congrats Zenith!
Another Sanibel Cyber Shelling Adventure
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I found that CARRIER SHELL I showed you on my last post Carried Away By A Carrier Shell but since I was so excited, I didn’t get to show you the rest of the shells I found. Aren’t the beautiful? It was an amazing day.
But wait, I’ve got a shell pile for you cyber shellers out there! I promise, I did not touch one thing in this pile before I took the next picture. But be careful! If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you might have a little sensory overload. Use caution, please.
OMG I just looked at that photo again! I missed another CONE!!! Did you spot it? TWO cones…. and I just looked again- maybe THREE. I worked this pile a while so I could have gotten it on another swipe but I definitely didn’t get it on the first run. I guess I was gathering every ounce of patience not to pluck this WORMIE, CANDIE and ALPHIE (notice the ultra cuteness clue of the “ie”endings) off the beach so I could take the picture.
So just a few minutes after finding this little seashell honey hole, I found the CARRIER SHELL and had to do a video. I hope you can see some of the other shells in that “troth” (I don’t think I’ve ever called it that before, but it sure did seem like one- LOL).
Oh yeah, something else cool…there was a live four legged BRITTLE STAR in one of the tidal pools.
Lovely Labor Day Weekend Looking For Shells
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We didn’t see huge shell piles on the beaches of Sanibel this Labor Day weekend but the few shells we found off West Gulf Drive beach access #6 were pretty spectacular… like this gigantaur ALPHABET CONE! It’s a whopping 3 inches long and completely in tact without lots of pitting (we usually find the cones “pitted” if they are this big). It’s the biggest CONE we’ve ever found.
A bright orange HORSE CONCH looked like he was burying his head in the shells…
Nobody was home! So he’s a keeper…
I spotted Miss Aqua way down the beach and knew I had to talk to her. Love her choice of color!
As I got closer she picked up something on the beach and got very excited. It was a beautiful double JEWELBOX…
We wanted to check out Blind Pass again so we checked the Sanibel side first. I thought this was the cutest couple holding hands while shelling…
I got a little closer and saw she had on an iLoveShelling lighted cap! She introduced herself as Barbara, the one that won the cap in the iLoveShelling GiveAway in June. So nice to meet you Barbara and Ted. So cool to meet a winner!
we walked the bridge to the Captiva side. As we looked in the water at our bird’s eye view from the bridge, we saw what looked like some good shells mixed in with PEN SHELLS. We called down to the two shellers in the water.
We directed William to a shell… “Go straight. Now look about one o’clock. Okay bend down. Right there!” LOL It was a nice size WHELK but there was somebody home so he had to go back but it was so much fun- I felt like we were playing “Mother May I” or “You’re Geting Warmer” haha
…a lovely weekend
