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!