Archive for Florida Spiny Jewelbox
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!
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.
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
Wave Hello To Sanibel Seashells
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Not many shells were to be found on the beach at Blind Pass Sanibel yesterday evening….but we sure were finding them coming in with the waves.
I ended up finding a very nice sampling of the Sanibel Six ….
We only saw a few other people on the beach to share the gold with so it was a pleasure to hang out and talk with Lynda from Palm City, Florida.
Diana rented a convertible in Orlando to bring her daughter Maddie to her favorite place on earth…. Sanibel to find shells.
Looky what Clark found….. A nice wormie!
I just love finding a double SPINEY JEWELBOX…..
Just because you don’t see a lot of of shells on the beach, doesn’t mean you won’t find a treasure or two. Get your toes in the water and let the waves do their job of bringing the gifts of the sea right to your feet.
PS- Don’t forget to sign up for the Susick Sea Shell Sifter GiveAway if you haven’t entered- CLICK HERE
Full Moon Unveils A Moon Shell
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After 25 mph winds swirling from north, south, east and west this weekend, the Gulf of Mexico was rockin’, rollin’ and doing the twist to help churn up those seashells. Since there was no clear wind direction, yesterday late afternoon we ran down to Blind Pass Sanibel at low tide (-0.4) to check out the sand bar. In just a short time, Super Sheller Clark scooped up this huge MOON SNAIL, aka the SHARK’S EYE , with his shelling backhoe. You can’t really tell how big it is in the photo above so this’ll give you an idea of how big it is…
I thought this was THE find of the day but Clark told me had another one that was his favorite of the day by far….an ALTERNATE TELLIN with both sides still attached.
I never would have thought he would choose a TELLIN as his favorite over a that SHARK’S EYE but our tastes change and grow for finding the unusual. I still haven’t had a chance to clean this one up but you can really see the colors by looking at this side…(oh, and take a look at how far out we were on the sand bar from the beach)
inside alternate tellin double
We found lots of FIGHTING CONCHS that we left on the beach for others to find.
I did keep one. This juvenile FIGHTING CONCH has the prettiest markings, I just had to put it in my pocket.
I met Shelling Sister Moira! She always loves the updates of Blind Pass so now she got to see it for herself….. with her hubby Marty. She has on her brand new iLoveShelling Tank Top! Fresh off the press!
She found this live OLIVE in her net and quickly dug a little spot in the sand to put him back.
There are quite few ways to collect shells. Like Clark, Moira and Marty like the scoops but Theresa prefers to lounge in the water and let the shells come to her in the tidal current. Then stack ‘em up!
I saw Faye and Penny (May 12 post) finding more goodies like this double SPINY JEWEL BOX.
As I walked up to the beach to gather my things, I saw this dried out STARFISH (SEA STAR) on the high tide line.
Since I was occupied with this STARFISH, Clark decided to check under the Blind Pass bridge to see if anything had washed up there. I heard him yell to me. I picked up the pace to see what he had found. Oh Lawd! A huge shell pile!
Aha! This is where they all were. There was a long deep line of shells on the bay side of the bridge with the shells pushed back into the bushes. A beautiful TRUE TULIP!
Cindy (MD) and Patty (VA) had already found the gold mine and had planted themselves right smack in the middle of this shell heaven.
In just a few minutes we found great shells and Patty found a KINGS CROWN, 2 FLATS and a FLORIDA CONE!!!
I found a KINGS CROWN too!
And an APPLE MUREX…
Okay, I’ll fess up. We couldn’t stay any longer because… okay….. I’m a huge “Survivor” fan and last night was the finale. Clark and I have been addicted since the very first show. Maybe because they are surviving on an island? I don’t know.. I just looove it and I would have hated it if the tivo didn’t record it. Yay Rob!!!
Shelling Sisters with our matching tanks. Check out our new caps too (one has lights!) at SHOP.
Click the picture for more info!
