As I was walking along the gulf's edge looking somewhat like this beachcomber... minding my own business looking for shells like this... I was enjoying all of the sites around me like this BLACK CROWNED NIGHT HERON... Then I decided to take a little dip in the water to change the view and look for other interesting treasures in the gulf. AAACCCKKKK! I got stung! Ouch! Something just brushed up on my ankle and stung me! Geez! All I see is a piece of SEAWEED. I got stung by something that looks like SEAWEED floating in the Gulf Of Mexico? So I picked it up to see what it was. Hmmmm... it didn't burn me this time. I put it on the sand to take this next photo... then I saw it move. It's alive! The "seaweed" is still alive! Maybe it's not a plant after all. Clark reminded me that he's been stung by this same thing before but I never got a good picture of it. So this time, I had to do some research to find out what the heck this thing is since I did get a good picture of it …
Black Crowned Night Heron
Helping A Sanibel Nudibranch
The weekend started off a little slow for finding shells since the wind was coming in from the east. On Friday evening, we checked out the lighthouse beach and the first thing I saw was a SEA HARE (or also called a NUDIBRANCH) washed up on the beach caught in a line of sea grass. So I picked he/she (literally because they are hermaphrodites) up since I thought it was still alive to put it back in the water and held it for a few minutes submerged. It started to move its wings so I released and it swam away. Yippee! I met a family on the beach.... they asked me "Where should we go to find some shells?". They didn't know what they were in for, did they? LOL They had no idea that Clark and I could talk for hours about shells. heehee We had a nice time talking to Venkataratnam and Hansaveni from New Jersey along with her parents Pavani and Anupam who were visiting Sanibel for the first time .... from India! The shelling wasn't fantastic since it was high tide and those darn east winds …