Archive for Coral
Seashells On Cloud Nine
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The shelling was excellent all weekend after the storm early last week. Not only was I tickled to find this large TRUE TULIP, the FLAT SCALLOPS, HORSIES, the WORMIE and a piece of aqua SEA GLASS, I think finding 2 pieces of JUNONIA and 2 pieces of LION’S PAW is what turbo charged me to run from beach to beach to search the clues for the unbroken loot. The after-burners went into high gear. I know you already heard I hit gold with my JUNONIA and LION’S PAW but now they are all cleaned up so I have to show them just one more time (I know, I know… just humor me 
)….
Ahhhhh. Two out of The Elite Three. So for a while, I’m not coming down from being on cloud nine.
I saw lots of other shellers and friends enjoying the gifts of the sea too. Sunrise shellers Robert and Eileen…
Robertfound a LION’S PAW too! It has some barnacles but who cares! It is a huge whole one and will clean up nicely I’m sure.
The locals were out playing on the beach too. I ran into my friend Mary (Captiva) …
She found an ALPHABET CONE and a bright orange HORSE CONCH. Candy!
More of my buddies! I found Betsy and Sherrill sittin’ n siftin’ through another big shell pile…
King and Queen of this shell mountain, Kathy and Tony had it all to themselves…
Other than shells, the storm brought in lots of other Beach Bling too. One of my favorites being pieces of CORAL.
I still have more photos of cool stuff I found on the beaches..but not the time to show them all again. We have Hurricane Rina out in the Caribbean which may turn towards Florida from Mexico so we have to keep an eye out to see what she does. I just hope everybody is safe from this Category 2 Hurricane headed for Cancun, Cozumel then turning towards Cuba. When everybody is safe, then we can think about the shells she might produce. I promise, I’ll catch up tomorrow and keep you updated.
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 Barefoot Beach Morning
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Coral from Barefoot Beach
I’ve been wanting to run down to Barefoot Beach in Bonita Springs (45 minute drive) to meet shelling sister Carla Barone for quite some time. Today I got to meet her and she was everything I thought… shell crazy and sweet as pie. As soon as we hit the beach, I found all of these pieces of CORAL as we walked south to get down to the jetty at Wiggins Pass.
Fossils found by Carla
Carla loves looking for not only shells but fossils and different beach treasures. She picked up these pieces then told me the fossils in her hand clockwise from top left…. a SHARK’S TOOTH, a piece of turtle shell called a “SKOOT”, and …okay… are you ready for this one? … the mouth plate of a PUFFER FISH. Wow. I’d like you to meet Carla…
Me with super collector Carla
She loves to talk to everyone on the beach about all the fun things to collect.
Carla showing fossils to Kathy and her friend
We found out that Kathy was a first time sheller and she found this…
Kathy with alphabet cone
A perfect ALPHABET CONE! I saw the colors through her shell bag and commented on her find but she didn’t know what I was talking about. She didn’t realize what she had… until now. Then we ran into Carla’s good friend Jen who taught her about most of the fossils she has found.
Fossil collector Jen
Today she was collecting as sorts of shells and goodies.
Jen's shell bag
Another one of Carla’s friends (she’s very popular on this beach!) Ella found this awesome SHARK’S EYE. What a cutie!
Ella with sharks eye
Then I found this huge WORM SHELL. I still can’t believe how big it is.
Wormie!
And some of his grand wormies…
Bunch of worm shells
On the way back, we saw several ssslloooooww GOPHER TORTOISES.
Gopher tortoise
So this is where Carla finds a lot of her shells.
Barefoot Beach entrance sign
So she can make beautiful whelk sculptures like this…
Whelk Sculpture by Carla Barone
Thanks for everything, Carla. It was a great shelling morning!
CyberSheller Eye Candy
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Two shelling Blind Pass
First of all, I want thank yall for so many beautiful holiday greetings of good tidings to Clark and me. I’ve also had a few requests for some more cybershelling! So here’s a thank you gift for your greetings – Go CyberShellers!
Cybersheller eye candy (click to enlarge)
Cybersheller Seashells on the seashore (click to enlarge)
This is just a start as a holiday gift but I will try to make a cybersheller photo a regular feature at least once a week, sound good? Here’s more pictures from this morning at Blind Pass on Captiva.
Shells on the shore
Coral branch found by Virginia Jim
Marissa (Illinois) with coral too
Marissa's coral close up
Stay tuned because tomorrow I have a fun holiday song for you. You’ll love it!
Shells in the pass
Seashell Love Note
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Sunset on the east end of Sanibel
Sunsets are so romantic. You don’t get to see the actual sunset from the beach on the east end of Sanibel but the sky can be so colorful and breathtaking. I’m not even sure if it isn’t even better sometimes to see the reflection like this one last night because it seems to last forever.
Emily and her mom Carol (Rolla, MO)
It must have been in the air because Carol wrote a seashell love note to her husband in the the sand using SCALLOP shells while on a “girls only” vacation with her daughter Emily. She took a picture of her note (Bill + CM) and said she would email it to her husband when she got back to her hotel room. How sweet!
Scallop shell love note
Jim and Beth (Sanibel)
We ran into Sanibel friends, Jim and Beth, combing the shoreline for the mini shells. They found a few DRILLS, AUGERS, a teeny tiny CONE, an OLIVE and a funky chunk of CORAL.
Beth's minis and piece of coral
Red Branch Coral?
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Chris's red coral or sponge
Chris and Sarah picked up this vibrant piece of beach treasure and thought it was a little piece of red branch CORAL. As you can see, it has the shape and branches like coral and so full of color. This is a very cool find…..but….I actually think this is a red SPONGE. I’m not sure it will last long (at times they turn to goo, fall apart or lose their color) but still, it’s beautiful and it’s fun to see different gifts from the sea.
Chris, Sarah and baby Logan (Crawfordsville, Indiana)
Colorful Moon shell and Kings Crown
Clark found this not-so-pretty nice sized KINGS CROWN at the lighthouse beach this weekend. Whether they have barnacles, slime, algae or worn spines, I still like them if nobody has made a home of it and clean them up. Most of the time, I can make them beautiful again by using old dental tools to pick off the barnacles, a tooth brush or scrub brush, and just a tad of bleach to get rid of the algae. I thought I’d shock you when I showed you a before and after picture when I started on the clean up. I started picking….. cleaning…… scrubbing….. errrrrr…… a little better….. back to cleaning…….. hmmmmm. Well, this is the best that this shell is going to get for me right now.
Semi-cleaned up King's Crown
Not too much of a shocker but it was still worth a try. The other side looks pretty good.
Cleaned King's Crown
We have our fair share of King’s Crowns, so when we go back to the lighthouse, we will return this where we found it so that someone else might be able to enjoy it too.
