Archive for Turban
Sensational Seashells, Sunshine and Sunsets
Posted by: | Comments
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!
Every Day Is A Gift
Posted by: | Comments
Yes, I am a fanatic sheller and beachcomber… but some days I want to visit the sea to find calmness and peace.
The beach reminds me that life’s treasures aren’t always obvious. At times I have to stop for a minute or two and focus on everything that is surrounding me. Then take another minute or two to refocus from the large obvious objects, to the smaller items that I may not have noticed.
There is so much there and so much more to enjoy. That’s when I am happiest.
By the look on Kelly’s face, she found a little happiness too.
Kelly (Colorado) picked up a TINTED CANTHARUS, WENTLETRAP and golden CHESTNUT TURBAN near Gulfside City Park.
I don’t see the TINTED CANTHARUS often so here is a look at the aperture side of the shell…
It also makes me so happy to find someone else that only collects one little shell to make them all warm and fuzzy (although we didnt need much help with getting warm… it was in the mid 80s. Nice!). I was happy to meet Susan from Naples…
She was thrilled to find this beautiful little COQUINA. She told me she loves butterflies and showed me her butterfly notebook which matched her sweet little COQUINA. That’s all she needed to make her day of shelling complete. One COQUINA. Every day should be that simple.
With all of the beautiful shells strung along the beach, Caryn from Michigan was quite amazed by the SPONGES, EGG CASINGS, and even the BONES (leftover bait from the crab traps that fell out) that were scattered on the beach. Ah! Somebody else that loves that BEACH BLING like I do!
And I met other beachcombers that found a few treasures but just as happy to be on the beach with the fresh air and sunshine. Here is Bernadette from Quebec City, Gertie from Arizona and Angela from Melbourne, FL (with the iLS shell ID card!)…
Ahhhh. Yes. I found my not-so-obvious treasures in seeing the happy faces of others enjoying what Mother Nature does best… reminding us that every day is a gift.
Happy Shelling Families and Friendships
Posted by: | Comments
When girlfriends get together for a beach vacation, you can feel the sisterhood happiness and excitement all the way down the shore. The “Sistahs” are actually newbie shellers but are definitely not newbies at finding the best treasures life has to offer. Deb, Lizzi, Baba, Becky, Karen, Sharon, Betty, Roxie and Sandy each live in different parts of the world so they have a reunion each year at a new destination … so this year they picked Captiva to “shellebrate” their friendship. They even wanted matching iLoveShelling tee shirts to commemorate the occasion. I feel so honored! Here’s Karen with her cute tee and showing off the best find of the morning. A reeaaally big LACE MUREX…
That’s an exshellent find!
Talk about “exshellent” finds… these guys have been shelling for over 20 years together and know how to find the good stuff in life too. Ian, Brett, Brett’s brother Jeff (who also happens to be Ian’s dad) were also shelling near the Blind Pass bridge on the Sanibel side and as you can tell… a very happy shelling family. Look at those smiles!
They told me they had great luck fishing all day yesterday and today they will be shelling all day and already had great luck this morning. My faves are the amazingly dark LIGHTNING WHELK, huge orange CHESTNUT TURBAN, and of course… the WORMIE! (heehee- they even called it a “wormie” too) And I didn’t even take pictures of the rest of their favorite finds… like the NUTMEG, LACE MUREX, bright orange CALICO SCALLOPS and TURKEY WINGS.
Brett even shared his finds with the “Sistahs”. They were thrilled!
We had a pretty good shell pile to practice the Sanibel Stoop… and the Sit ‘N Sift…
I feel so fortunate to be part of such an amazing community of people brought together by shells. Oh, and sometimes a GREAT BLUE HERON joins in on the family fun too.
Seashells And Beach Bling Colored By Isaac
Posted by: | Comments
Not only did Hurricane Isaac bring in loads of various species of shells and BEACH BLING, the storm brought in the most glorious colors of treasures I’ve ever seen. As you can see in the picture above, the shell colors are spectacsheller but it was also so exciting to find a few pieces of SEA GLASS, MILLIPEDE STARFISH, CORAL, WORM ROCK, OPERCULUMS, and BRYOZOAN COLONIES.
I was also thrilled to find quite a few CONES but look at the variation in color of these ALPHABET CONES. I love this deep dark brown one in the middle!
I found this brownish CONE which I assume is just a really fabulous FLORIDA CONE like the others but I haven’t seen that deep rich color here in SouthWest Florida before. Look how big it is…. I loooove it!
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this CHESTNUT TURBAN either! Look at the fantastic pattern and colors of the one on the left!
The FLORIDA FIGHTING CONCHS were everywhere so it was almost overwhelming. I normally don’t collect them any more but I couldn’t help but pick up a variety of the colors after Clark found the ALBINO FIGHTING CONCH. There were so many different colors than this (and in better shape) but these are the ones that made it home with me… White, tan, orange, brown and black.
The JUVENILE FIGHTING CONCHS were out of control! I could have gone crazy! But then again, I had to ask myself… “Self?” “How many shells do you really need to take home?” … Then I answered “Okay, Self, I’ll only take enough to show my fave peeps on my blog”. (That gave me a great excuse to take just a couple more than I needed. 
) So now you have to look at all of these patterns and colors so I can make my Self feel better… heehee…
On my August 30 post, I showed you a darling blue bucket with all kinds of great shells pile to the top and the lucky gal Amy who found them. Well Amy also found this incredible brown OLIVE shell that I am assuming is an unbelievable LETTERED OLIVE (9-13-12 UPDATE: I assumed incorrectly! It’s a FULGURATOR OLIVE! ). I know, I know, it doesn’t look like a LETTERED OLIVE (because it’s not… please see my post Brown Olive Shell Mystery Solved!) but just like the other shells I’ve shown, the coloring can vary tremendously.
Isn’t that sooooo beautiful?? Look at the aperture side. It’s just as fabulous…
The last few weeks on the beach have been so amazing. Mother Nature has yet again colored my world.
Shelling For Sunshine
Posted by: | Comments
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!
Our Adventures Of Collecting Seashells In Thailand – Part 3
Posted by: | Comments
These are Super Sheller Clark’s prized possession seashells he found on our trip to Thailand… not one but two SPOTTED TUNS !
Within minutes of getting to the east side of Ao Nang in Krabi, he found these bad boys several feet away from each other high on the beach in the weed line.
We had seen broken pieces of them throughout our trip but were afraid we wouldn’t find them as a whole shell on the beach since they are so fragile. Wrong! They are in great shape!
I found out the word “tun” means wine jar or wine cask. This seems fitting because Clark looked like he wanted to throw a party right there on the beach and drink wine right out of these guys to shellebrate!
We got them home safely and I’ve already displayed them in a white washed wooden bowl with some other pieces we found on our trip.
I didnt want any other shells competing with Clark’s new babies so I chose to display them with some other sea life we found on the Thailand beaches. I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to bring CORAL back into the United States from other countries. I just learned that from Susan H who posted that on my last post- OOPS! Too late- sorry, CITES! Well, At least I feel good about not taking too much- only a few pieces from each beach…It was so hard to choose which pieces of CORAL we were going to bring home but this is what we ended up with…
These are the biggest OPERCULUMS (SHIVA SHELLS) I’ve ever seen! I would have loved to see the TURBAN shell that these came from. Geesh! The biggest one is 3 inches wide…
The first time I picked up one of these, I yelled to Clark… “I found the biggest stinkin JINGLE you’ve ever seen!”. Haha Then I realized what it was… a CAPIZ SHELL. I used to have trays and dishes made out of these shells. I’m sure you have seen these in some kind of home decor but it’s really cool to find them on the beach.
I threw in a few of the AUGERS (or TURRETS) we found to give my little display a different texture and balance (heehee) so Clark’s SPOTTED TUNS would have a beautiful resting place to be shown off.
Although this day of finding these two gorgeous shells on a beach Thailand will be a memorable day for both of us, I’d like to recognize this Memorial Day for remembering the men and women who died while serving to protect our country. As we traveled foreign lands just last week, I experienced peace in the world because of the bravery of our fallen heroes and those currently serving in our military. A toast from our TUNS to all who serve.
PS- I took back that Nikon J1. All of my photos are still with my trusty Panasonic.
