Archive for Jewel Box
Sensational Seashells, Sunshine and Sunsets
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If there is a better souvenir than finding an awesome LIGHTNING WHELK like this to remember a wonderful vacation… I dont know about it.
Therese told me she only saw a tiny bit of the top of this shell and thought it looked interesting enough to start digging around it. Then she realized it was this perfectly empty WHELK! Congratshellations Therese! She and her husband Dan (visiting from Minnesota) had an exshellent afternoon at Blind Pass Captiva under the bridge at low tide filling up their shell bags with WHELKS, CONCHS, OLIVES and one nice piece of a JUNONIA.
She even found one of the biggest CHESTNUT TURBANS I’ve seen in a while too…
Wendy (a local Sanibelian) found a few goodies to take home to make into jewelry…
She also found a SHIVA SHELL (which I didnt even get a picture of – darn!- so CLICK HERE if you want to see one) and this incredible DOUBLE JEWELBOX. It has pieces of CORAL growing on it!
Clark found a few nice shells too but the one I got most excited about was the WHITE CRESTED TELLIN in the top left corner. We have found them more on Cayo Costa but to find one at Blind Pass is pretty rare. The shell in between the two OLIVES is a huge and thick weird shaped JINGLE I thought was interesting too. I love that weird stuff!
You really couldn’t see how big the NUTMEG was in the last photo so I thought I’d show you how big it is in Clark’s hand. It’s shellacious! It measures in at a whopping 48mm… which isn’t like a world record size (Susan H?) but it’s the biggest one we’ve seen in a long time!
I found a regular sized NUTMEG that I thought I’d keep along with a BITTERSWEET, a CALICO CLAM with a cool pattern, and my new faves- the CALICO SCALLOP.
We ended the evening watching another gorgeous sunset over a big pile of Sit ‘N Sift shells on the other side of the jetty rocks at Blind Pass Captiva.
The sky turns a lucious orange right at the horizon when the sun sets over the Gulf Of Mexico.
Then it melts into the water to end another sensational day on the island.
Oh Wait! I did take a short little video right when we first got to Blind Pass at 6pm yesterday. It’s just a little something to show you exactly where we were. This was right before Therese showed me her WHELK! Have a wonderful weekend!
Shelling For Sunshine
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Through cloudy skies and and patchy rain, I was thrilled to find this bright beam of sunshine called a CHESTNUT TURBAN colored brilliant orange. I know it doesn’t look at all “chestnutty” but believe it or not that’s what it is.
My second fave find in the last few days is another ray of sunshine…. a COLORFUL MOON SHELL (or also called a GAUDY NATICA). This one seemed exceptionally colorful AND gaudy…
Clark and I were convinced that the out islands would be loaded with shells still from Tropical Storm Debby and the weather the last then so we hopped on our boat with some friends and headed out to Cayo Costa. I found more sunshine with a little HORSE CONCH candy!
Daron, Jacob and Berringer donned the snorkeling gear…
…And found a FLORIDA CONE!
There were pockets of seashells hidden around the tree roots in the high tide wrack line where we found some BABY’S EARS.
Everybody loves these tree roots! Susan and her son Berringer were no exception. It’s the perfect backdrop for photos.
Clark was busy working his magic with the shelling backhoe and pulled up lots of LETTERED OLIVES and a few TRUE TULIPS…
All in all, it was a really fun trip on the boat but it wasn’t at all “loaded with shells” like we thought. So after our boat ride, we stopped at Blind Pass Sanibel….where it was “loaded”. I found my 2 fave shells of the weekend (the orange TURBAN and the MOON above) within 10 minutes.
I was also fortunate to have met EJ who is a research associate with Department Of Environmental Sciences at UVA (where my nephew just graduated…with distinction!) , Hannah (an educator at UVA as well) and her mom Crystal (AL). It was fascinating to hear about EJ’s project to map the mangrove ecosystems of Sanibel and research the soils and sea grass beds along SouthWest Florida. What a fun job! Well he must have mapped out where the ALPHABET CONES would wash up because they were plucking them out right when I walked by…
Crystal showed me her fave find which was an unusual cluster of shells. It is a double CORRUGATE JEWLBOX, double KITTEN’S PAW, BARNACLES and a few sprouts of CORAL that cemented together to make a beautiful little shell bouquet.
While dodging the storm clouds for 3 days, here’s an assortment of the shells we kept (Clarkis saving the LETTERED OLIVES for next year’s 4th of July parade already). Need help identifying all of these shells? Check out my SEASHELL IDENTIFICATION page!
Collecting Colorful Seashells In The Gulf
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Mother Nature has been providing lots of gifts from her sea this week! Not only did she give us all the Beach Bling on the east end, we were finding some excellent shells off West Gulf Drive west of Tarpon Bay Road this weekend.
In the water at the shoreline, Clark found a few ALPHABET CONES, colorful juvie HORSE CONCHS, SHARK’S EYES, dark colorful LETTERED OLIVES and BANDED TULIPS, a double CALICO CLAM and a double ALTERNATE TELLIN.
I was shelling the nice piles on the beach…
I found this sweet little pinkish FLORIDA SPINY JEWELBOX…
And 6 sets of pink and yellow ALTERNATE TELLINS. Here are two of them…
Candy!
Just in case you didn’t catch it in the first photo, take a look at how pretty and dark orange this FLORIDA CONE is. Clark found this just as we were about to leave the beach. It’s my fave shell of the weekend!
Ever Changing Blind Pass Sanibel
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It sure feels good to find an ALPHABET CONE again! I’ve been stumped finding the SANIBEL SIX lately so I was excited to find this baby within a half hour of arriving at Blind Pass Sanibel yesterday evening for a somewhat low tide at a .4. I still didn’t find the SANIBEL SIX though since I couldn’t find a TULIP that was in good enough shape but I’m subbing that bright orange CHESTNUT TURBAN on the right as a good find to be very happy.
See how that sand bar has moved right to the beach now? You never know what to expect the beach to look like until you walk out and see if for yourself. Always a surprise.
The tidal pool was loaded with live FIGHTING CONCHS …
On the other side of the tidal pool, shellers were lined up along the shoreline to catch the seashell loot washing up to the beach.
I met so many cool shellers like Joe and Kerry from Sebastian, FL…
..and Karen and Steve from Michigan…
Karen found two gorgeous bright orange CHESTNUT TURBANS.
Here are Tim and Mary Ann (NY) showing off Mary Ann’s cool shell sifter.
I think the prize of the evening was Tim’s incredibly large FLORIDA SPINY JEWELBOX with attached valves. It’s terrific!
Anna (West Virginia) was tickled pink as she filled up her strainer with shells.
She found FIGHTING CONCHS, MUREXES, COCKLES, SCALLOPS and a pretty little TRUE TULIP.
Bob and Johnnie (TN) were on one of the shell piles searching for minis.
And they found them! I loooove this tiny little lemon yellow ROUGH SCALLOP…
They found some other colorful cuties too including a sweet FLAT SCALLOP…
It was a fabulous night meeting so many nice people and seeing the shell piles on the Sanibel side again.
Thank you Donnie (the cone man) for letting me know I needed to get down to Blind Pass to see this! Yes! I needed a break from that stupid camera any way. No, I didn’t take any of theses photos with the J1 and by the word “stupid”, I think you can tell I’m still frustrated with it ;( . Anyway, I took a quick little video with my trusted little Panasonic DMC-ZS6 to pan the beach to show you exactly what it looked like and how the beach has changed…. yet again. Oh, and sorry about the sound. The wind noise is horrible but oh well, I just wanted y’all to see it any way.
UPDATE! Set your DVRs and Tivos for Sunday morning!!!
I forgot to mention the Sanibel/seashell story I spoke in my about March 1 post should be airing this Sunday, April 22nd on CBS Sunday Morning.We don’t know exactly when the segment will air, but the show is on 9 – 10:30am (EST) and Bill’s pieces usually run towards the last half hour of the show (10-10:30 Eastern). The disclaimer is that this is TV, and anything can happen – so it is confirmed best to all of our abilities.
Golden Girl Gets Seashell Gold
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When Joanne showed me her CABRIT’S MUREX last weekend, she told me she also had found a GOLDEN OLIVE almost the color of a pumpkin. It is! It’s brilliant! Look at the color on this gem.
Her GOLDEN OLIVE is quite a prize but when she told me she had found a golden LEAFY JEWEL BOX with both sides together as well….. that’s when I got excited. I just had to see it.
Now you might not think this is really pretty right away, but look at the colors and texture on this shell.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen both sides still together of a LEAFY on the beach before.
I have collected single valves for my own stash but never have shown one to you because it never looked interesting enough or it didn’t photograph well….okay, actually…. I thought you might think I was crazy for picking up what look like a beat up shell. But now you can see for yourself how cool they are. Don’t you think? …. Errrr…..Maybe?
These yellow and orange ROUGH SCALLOPS are fabulous too. That top yellow SCALLOP looks a little different so even if it has a few holes in the middle, that is a fabulous find. Joanne really is the golden girl!
This OLIVE pales against all of these other shells but that’s what makes it special in my book. It looks to be an albino LETTERED OLIVE.
It’s definitely not beach worn with that glossy shine to it so to me, this is a great find too.
Thanks so much, Golden Girl Joanne, for sharing your golden treasures with us.
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
