Archive for Scotch Bonnet
CShells Sees Seashells By The Seashore
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CShells sees seashells by the seashore. She snagged this sweet LIONS PAW scallop shell with her seashell sifter when she saw it on Sanibel this week.
CShells really slayed Sanibel when husband Richard reaped rewards of reeling in a remarkable SCOTCH RONNET (Okay, it’s a BONNET, but it’s funnier with the “r” ! Just go with it 
)
Richard recognized its round richness in the rise of the wrack line.
Congratshellations Richard and CShells! You scored the shells!
PS- HAPPY HOLIDAY SALE!
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Welcome To Captiva
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I saw several work trucks in the Blind Pass parking lot so, of course my first thought was that this was the first sign for the dredging of the pass to begin. Then I saw… literally… a “sign”. A new “Welcome” sign! The crew at R.S Walsh landscaping couldn’t have been nicer and sure did a fine job posing as our welcoming committee. Thanks guys! (hmmm, should it have said “WHELKome”?)
Still no dredging equipment but there is a fresh new pile of shells and big chunks of CORAL. Heather and Karak found a great piece…
I love this piece. It’s a CORAL Kiss!
So talking about CORAL, look at this big honking hunk…
Oh yaya, You see those ALPHIES, FLATS, deep red TULIP, yellow HORSIE, and the SHARK’S EYE. But I know you had to spot that sweet little LION’S PAW…
These were all found by Wendy and her husband Kevin (no, he didn’t get in the pic) from Blind Pass to Bowman’s this week.
After showing me the other shells, she pulled out this mac daddy HORSE CONCH… niiiiice!
I saw Shelling Sistah Janet from Georgia finding some goodies too. I saw her last year about this same time with her good friend Betty Jo (Hi Betty Jo!).
Leah (from Clearwater area) posted this next photo on the i Love Shelling Facebook page and said
“Yesterday I found my second whole (well almost completely whole) Junonia up at the beach renourishment site at Sand Key. Here it is with my other fave finds of the weekend.”
Oh My!! Along with two, count them, two JUNONIAS, she found a SCOTCH BONNET and half a LIONS PAW. That for me is The Elite Three. And that’s not it! COLORFUL MOONS, ALPHABET CONES (yes, I call them ALPHIES), and look at the brown color of that OLIVE. What kind of OLIVE is that?
These shells were found at Sand Key which is up in Clearwater, Florida about 2 1/2 hours drive north from Sanibel. Leah says they are doing dredging there right now. Wow! This is the conversation on the Facebook page (click on it to enlarge)…
So if this is any “sign” of what’s to come from our dredging project on Captiva and Sanibel, this will be exciting! Yes, I’d like to find another JUNONIA but I would especially like to find an ATLANTIC MORUM like Leah did. Here’s a closer shot of the MORUM sandwiched in between the JUNONIA and GOLDEN OLIVE (that’s quite an impressive sandwich) .
Colorful Juvenile Milk Conch On Sanibel
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As Jane and I walked all along West Gulf Drive after those cold (down to 37 degrees!) winds came through this past week, I heard her say “Whoa!” then bend down to pick up a shell. She found a JUVENILE MILK CONCH!
A MILK CONCH is very unusual to find here on Sanibel since it’s a caribbean shell.
Look how colorful it still is!
If you remember, Beach Girl Robyn found an adult MILK CONCH along the same beach in September and I said the same…. “Unusual”. Maybe I should say it’s a “rare” find here instead. To find it here, it’s way more rare than finding a JUNONIA! In any case, this 5 inch shell a fantastic find.
So then we keep walking and she’s about 5 paces ahead of me. I see her run and pick up something else in a hurry. She yells “Aha! A SCOTCH BONNET!”. What???
Yes, my buddy Jane also found a perfect SCOTCH BONNET right in front of me. I felt like I was walking with Clark for goodness sakes! Heehee. No, really….we were both ecstatic.
Note to self: Never let Jane walk in front of me while we are shelling together. Ha!
We also met SS Jenny (Shelling Sister) sifting through a sweet honey hole where she was finding oodles of FIGHTING CONCHS, WHELKS and OLIVES. She got out there before sunrise and used her iLS lighted cap she got for Christmas! Right after I took this picture she found two ALPHABET CONES in the same spot. Weehoo! She had no trouble finding the Sanibel Six many times over.
Congrats to Jane and Jenny on your seaside treasure trove!
Gotten, The Cabrits Of Our Lives
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It’s not easy to find a CABRIT’S MUREX on the beaches of Sanibel.. much less with some of the spines still in tact. So I was over the moon when Clark found this one near Bowman’s Beach. (Okay, hopefully not the Cabrits of our lives but I couldn’t resist the silly title play on words)
Joanne (NJ) was shelling in the same spot with me when Clark showed us this great find. So guess what she found the very next day? You guessed it! Her own CABRITS MUREX!!
They look to be just about the same size and color (Clark’s looks whiter but when it’s wet it looks just like her’s with a pinkish color) but hers has a few more spines still in tact. Crazy, huh?
Look at the other cool shells she found… a piece of LIONS PAW, 2 FLATS and a pink tinted ALTERNATE TELLIN with both sides still attached.
Then I ran into Joan (Indiana) who found a beautiful SCOTCH BONNET on her birthday!!!!
Look at that bright yellow SCALLOP too. Happy birthday, Joan!
The low tide mornings over the weekend brought in these unusual shells along with lots of the goodies.
Lizbeth found a handful of orangies. Look at that fabulous solid brilliant orange CHESTNUT TURBAN. It doesn’t look chestnut to me, you know?
I also found a wonderful treasure… Shelling Sistah Connie Knight in her i Love Shelling shirt!!!
And then Shelling Sistah Mary Ann Ross too! I was in hog heaven all weekend.
Here’s Benny from Miami finding those bright orange SCALLOPS too…
The weekend started off with gobs of rain and wind then finished with gorgeous skies. We shelled right through all of it and ended up with a treasure trove. You gotta roll with the tides, baby.
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.
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’. 
