Archive for World shelling
Shelling Trip Adventure To Turks And Caicos
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Shelling is a treasure hunt and an exshellent adventure every time you comb a beach or snorkel open waters in search of seashells or Beach Bling. As with any treasure hunt, you have to search high and low to find the bounty… and that’s what we did.
Our vacation to heaven…. errr… I mean North Caicos and Middle Caicos was packed full of seashell collecting (as I’ve shown you in my past few posts) and we had an adventure every day to hunt for them. As promised, I’ll tell you all about where we stayed, a few places we ate and and some other cool stuff we saw on our island expeditions. This post is a little long but I’ve got some great info packed in here! So get a cup of coffee and relax or jot down a few notes just in case you ever travel to TCI (Turks & Caicos Islands) in search for seashells.
Our vacation really started when we handed our passports and airline tickets to the American Airlines agent in Miami to catch the next flight to Provenciales (Provo) which is one island in the chain of forty islands that make up Turks & Caicos. After landing in Provo, we passed by countless luxury resorts, spas and shopping malls on our taxi ride to the ferry landing to climb aboard My Girl ferry which took us on a half hour boat ride to North Caicos Island.
As I said, we chose to pass up spas, shopping malls and luxuries to be greeted on the North Caicos ferry landing by our car we rented for a week from Al’s Auto Rental to get us around the islands. Really? You can’t even see the scrapes and dents from this photo but it had four wheels and it ran… that’s all that counted. But we did have to laugh!
On a dirt road leading to a nicer paved “highway” then on to pot holes and rubble, we found the way to our awesome cottage by the sea called the Whitby White House…our beachfront rental for the week in the little town of Whitby.
Paradise found. This next photo was the view from our back porch… and there it was… a rainbow. Pinch me!
How can we be staying in a house that has seashells lining the steps and around the sea oats in the yard with a rainbow over the aqua water? This kind of stuff only happens in dreams, doesn’t it?
We were starved by the time we got settled in the house so we took a ten minute walk down west down the beach to a local place called Silver Palms Restaurant.
Surprise! The owner Karen had a little private birthday party set up for me! Okay, it was “private” because she normally doesn’t stay open after 5pm on Sundays but she made an exception since Jane ordered lobster dinners in advanced and told her she wanted to surprise me. How sweet!!! And how yummy! It was a fantastic meal! Thank you Jane, John and Clark for the best birthday EVER! And remember, I even found the MILK CONCH and my first juvie QUEEN CONCH of the week on the walk back on the beach that same night. I’ll never forget that day.
The next morning, we all sat at the breakfast table to map out our route for the day… which turned into our routine for the entire week. Remember the word “Adventure”. It was… but let me assure you, we felt safe every second every where we went. Every person we met was so very nice and helpful, safety was not an issue or we would not have explored the places we explored. The only problem was is that we found most of the roads to the beaches were like this…
They drive on the other side of the road so John took the wheel and drove us around like a champ over every rock and around every hole. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard exploring a new place. This was a good street sign…
As we found out very quickly, there were some unfortunate circumstances North Caicos and Middle Caicos experienced in the past 6 years. In 2008, we all know that the market crashed and the economy went down the ceramic bowl. But not only that, the same year they got hit by Category 5 Hurricane Hanna which did MAJOR damage and took out the causeway from North Caicos to Middle Caicos and most of the other roads. Two weeks later, Category 4 Hurricane Ike slammed into them again. Don’t you think that would be enough for these little islands? No. It gets worse. What we heard was that Lehman Brothers was one of the major investors in most of the new hotel projects and condos. I’m sure you remember that name. Lehman brothers was the largest bankruptcy in the U.S. and caused the beginning of our economy failure… also in 2008. There are shells (no pun intended) of buildings around the islands that they just walked away from. The islands of North and Middle Caicos still haven’t recovered and the “politics” have stopped the process. It’s so sad! But folks, these people dont get depressed. The locals are making due and are still happy on their little island living off the land and the tourists. So we, being tourists, enjoyed every inch of these sweet little islands and the people living there. Rough roads and all! Okay, so let’s not dwell on the bad roads and unfinished buildings… we’ve got site seeing to do! We had the beaches to ourselves and all the shells our little hearts could desire! I think this was the prettiest beach I’ve ever seen. Mudjin Harbour on Middle Caicos.
Then we hit the jackpot. We met Cardinal Arthur. Shelling guide extraordinaire.
We stopped at Daniel’s Cafe on Middle Caicos to grab a bite to eat… only to find that it was closed on Mondays. Arg. It was Monday.
It didn’t matter because Cardinal happened to pull up on the street when we were deciding where to go next so we started talking to him. What a gem! Not many people in TCI understood why we were looking for seashells. They thought we were crazy looney bins. Not Cardinal. He got excited to tell us he knew where we could find SUNRISE TELLINS, SAND DOLLARS, TRITONS and where to see PINK FLAMINGOS. Really! He knew the names of the shells! Ha! Fate, man. I tell you… fate. We struck a deal and met him at a dock the next day for a boating adventure.
We were like little kids all geared up…
In less than an hour, I found my first PARTRIDGE TUN…
I’ve already shown you photos of the shells we found in my last posts but I also made a couple of maps (that I’ve attached to the bottom of this post) so you can see all of the shells we found here. It was a day out of a fairy tail.
Cardinal took us to see the PINK FLAMINGOS…
John wanted to fish as well as shell…
Cardinal took Jane and John out by the reef where they caught several types of SNAPPER, GROUPER and BARRACUDA (Cardinal took the barracuda home to eat since we didn’t want to eat it). They even saw a WHALE and her baby! When they came back to join us, John threw out his line again and caught this MUTTON SNAPPER right near our shelling hole.
We ate fresh fish (YUM!) for two nights back at our home away from home… The Whitby White House. We also bought lobster from Cardinal that Clark grilled outside on the barbecue for fabulous dinners two of the other nights. We had a seafood feast! Jane and I made fresh salads with sliced fruit each night while the boys were the grill masters. I normally don’t like to cook but this was so much fun to spend time back at our beach cottage all together making freshly caught meals and sharing the wondrous stories of the day. And laughing… and laughing until our stomaches hurt.
We packed our lunches most days since we didn’t really know where we would end up … which worked well for us since we like to wing it. But we got back to the house around lunch time one day after visiting a few beaches like Horsestable Beach and a few others that didn’t produce a lot of collectable shells for us (but who knows, it could have been a gold mine the day before… it’s all about Mother Nature) so we knew we had a great beach in front of our place to explore on the way to the coolest beach bar on the islands…. Barracuda Beach Bar.
I could have moved in to this awesome tiki hut filled with shells, shells and more shells.
It even had lots of Beach Bling like this WHALE JAW BONE hanging in the rafters. So Cool!
They have the best burgers and fries in town and it’s only a ten minute walk east from our house. It’s like our house was sandwiched (pun intended this time) in between the 2 best restaurants on the island so we could look for shells on the way back…
Then relax for a little while…
And enjoy our own veranda view…
We probably could have just stayed within a couple of miles of our cottage and found plenty of great shells but we are all explorers so we had to check out all of the beaches. We couldn’t have explored as much without the help of the map provided by WhereWhenHow.com… which I have embellished (with their permission) to show you where we found our best shells. This map will show you where we stayed, The Whitby White House and our best shelling locations on North Caicos (population of 1300 according to a few locals)…
This next map is of Middle Caicos (population 309 according to the same locals) and our best shelling places…
We cleaned and sorted our shells every day so they could dry in time to pack them up to put in our luggage. We saved all of the containers from our food, drinks and souvenirs so they wouldn’t get crushed or broken.
U.S. Customs allows 2 or 3 QUEEN CONCHS per person (it seemed like it depended on the agent) to be brought into the country and they didn’t seem to care about any of the other shells. Turks & Caicos Customs didn’t have a problem with any shells going out of the county so we had no trouble at all… and not one shell broke. Like I said before though, we didn’t bring home every empty shell we found. I know these are gorgeous but I thought bringing home just one was enough so I left these at the house…
As you can see, we had quite a vacation to remember. I’m still in awe when I look at all of our shells we brought home to remember this amazing week. The only thing I might have done differently is stay a bit longer. But then, there’s always another time… hopefully. I would love to get back there one day.
Just in case you go, here are some links (if you don’t know that every bolded and light lighted word in the post has a link attached) or phone numbers if they dont have websites… Oh, and tell them Pam at iLoveShelling.com sent you! They’ll get a kick out of it since they all thought is was weird I had a website devoted to finding seashells. LOL
Whitby White House… http://turksandcaicosvacation.com
Cardinal Arthur- 1-649-241-0730- He doesn’t have a website, doesn’t do internet and only takes cash. Everybody on both islands knows him. He also drives a taxi and does other tours around the island.
Al’s Auto Rental 1-649-331-1947 / 946-7248 There are other rentals and I cant remember if it was cheaper than the others or what but they were very helpful and the car got us where we wanted to go.
MV My Girl Ferry- +1-649-241-0599 There’s another ferry too but this one had better times for us.
KJ’s Grocery- 1-649-946-7705 - It’s only a 10 minute drive from the house and they take credit cards for purchases over $25. The owner, Maggie was great and we got most of our groceries from her. She even gave us boxes just in case we were going to ship shells home (sweet!)… but we decided against shipping.
Silver Palms Restaurant- http://oceanbeach.tc/restaurant-bar/silver-palm-restaurant/
Barracuda Beach Bar- http://barracudabeachbar.blogspot.com/2012/03/barracuda-beach-bar.html
I hope you enjoyed this little cyber shelling vacation with us! It was fun to share this awesome getaway with you. Just in case you missed the photos of all of the seashells we found, CLICK HERE! Bon Voyage!
Best Seashells From Our Vacation to Turks and Caicos
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I am still in awe of how many different seashells we found on our vacation to North Caicos and Middle Caicos of the Turks and Caicos Islands. I’m also in awe (okay, let me tell the truth…. ”overwhelmed” would be the right word) because I took over 1100 photographs. Yikes! So this is what I’m going to do since I can’t smoosh all of these amazing shells, photos and info in just this one post. I’m going to show you our best finds now and then in my next post I’ll show you where we found them and a few maps just in case you ever want to go there on one of your shelling vacations too. After that, I’ll show you where we stayed on North Caicos and a few restaurants and other things we loved about the islands. But for now, lets get on with the seashell show! I showed you Clark’s KING HELMET, my ANGULAR TRITON and some QUEEN CONCHS on my last post but these PARTRIDGE TUNS for sure made it on our “besties” list. They look like really fragile scotch bonnets without the thick lip.
Here’s a close up the bottom of our LONG-SPINED STAR SHELL I showed on my vacation “teaser” (heehee) post. I say “our” shell because Clark and I were snorkeling side by side when we both spotted this beauty as the same time. Gorgeous, right?
Here are the different colors of the GAUDY ASAPHIS I talked about…
We could have gathered hundreds of doubles! Clark collected so many different colors then picked through them to get the best to bring back…
The double SPECKLED TELLINS were such a treat too! We are always tickled to find beautiful bivalves when both valves are still attached…
Believe it or not, this is my first BLEEDING TOOTH NERITE. I saw oodles of NERITES, but since I was trying to be very selective in what we brought home, I chose this one I’ve never found before to bring home and it’s one of my faves!
And of course the SUNRISE TELLINS. Oh my. They really look like they have been colorfully painted then sprayed with a high gloss coating. It was astonishing to find a perfect double SUNRISE TELLIN laying in the shallow water half covered by sand. A true gift of the sea.
Oops! I forgot to put my MILK CONCH in my bestie photo but this has to be part of my favorites list too!
I found this MILK CONCH and a juvie QUEEN CONCH the first night we arrived… which was my birthday night. YAY! We didn’t want to waste a minute so we walked the beach as soon as we arrived and these washed up at my feet. YAY Again!
I love the minis!!!! Just like here in Sanibel, if we are visiting a beach and we aren’t finding the larger shells in the wrack line, at the shoreline or in the water, we start looking for miniature shells. We found them! They are just so stinkin sweet, arent they?
But wait! There’s more! I want to share Jane and John’s besties too!
You saw John Johnny Rescue’s QUEEN CONCH and Jane’s ANGULAR TRITON yesterday and they found the SUNRISE TELLINS and PARTRIDGE TUNS as well…. But… John found this very cool CONE!
It really doesn’t match exactly with that thin lip, high spire and a few other details and I havent had time to research further, but our best guess is that it’s a CROWN CONE.
UPDATE! Deenie just commented to tell us that this is not a CONE at all! It’s a juvenile HAWKWING CONCH! How cool is that. Now that I know what it is, I can completely recognize the shape and now I know why the lip is so thin unlike a CONE and the spire is so tall. Thank you so much Deenie!
Well how about that… John found an adult HAWKWING CONCH as well so you can see what that juvie will look like when it grows up.
And look at the color and lines of this RETICULATED COWRIE-HELMET!
It is a spectacular shell! Good find John!
I’m still stunned and amazed at this next shell…. well I should really say “BEACH BLING”. It’s the OPERULUM to the COLORFUL MOON SHELL! It’s a SHIVA SHELL.
What? Why haven’t we ever found these on Sanibel??? We have gobs of COLORFUL MOONS (GAUDY NATICAS) so why don’t we find their OPERCULUMS more often? Weird. Plain Weird. Thanks Susan for the heads up on this beaut. So now we have something new to look for in SouthWest Florida too so look at the exterior of this SHIVA SHELL to put this in your shelling brain. Anyway, John found this one in the high tide wrack line mixed in with some other Beach Bling and a few days later I found one too but it wasn’t perfect like this…
So how cool are these shells from The Caicos, huh? Let me show you the whole kit and caboodle of shells Clark and I brought back. Keep in mind, after rinsing and inspecting the shells we collected each day, we didn’t bring home the majority of our shells to Sanibel. We inspected for cracks, critters, crud or replaced them for better specimens. We want to respect the islands, sand and beaches so we have to be conservative with the shells we take. We only kept the ones we knew we would either display in our home or research for the blog. Look how beautiful they are! I could just sit and stare at all of these treasures for hours at a time!
I’ll try to give you as much information as possible about our stay in a short time so I’m already working on a map to show you where most of our shells were found on our exshellent adventure!
Finding Seashells On Turks And Caicos Islands
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We went to Turks and Caicos Islands on our vacation and it was a-mazing! We explored just about every beautiful inch of North Caicos and took several wild adventures to Middle Caicos and found that to be just as breathtaking.
We had lots of sunshine and warm weather for great beach combing on their awesome picturesque beaches along with plenty of clear aqua water to snorkel for hours at a time. But… best of all… we found a slew of bright, beautiful and colorful seashells! Remember I showed you a photo in my last post of a KING HELMET? Clark has always wanted to find a KING HELMET shell… and now his wish has come true! He was (is) sooooo ecstatic about his find!
Can’t you see why?
He was not going to come out of that water until he found something spectacular since he was very jealous (but very happy for me) when I showed him what I found…. an ANGULAR TRITON!
Take a look at this beauty…
I still can’t believe how many juvenile QUEEN CONCHS we found…
We found them on just about every beach we visited rolling in the surf…
Most of the empty adult QUEEN CONCHS around the islands had large cuts or holes in the spire of the shell because the locals cut the shell to get the meat out for food so it was hard to find a pretty one to bring home. John “Johnny Rescue” finally found a gorgeous QUEEN CONCH!
I’m still in awe at the glossy brilliant colors of this shell…
Jane found a nice size ANGULAR TRITON too!
It was a little gunky when she found it but it cleaned up like a dream…
We were all thrilled to find SUNRISE TELLINS and GAUDY ASAPHIS shells. The SUNRISE TELLINS are the glossy yellow, pink and white ones that have the sunbeam pattern. We found quite a few different colors of the GAUDY ASAPHIS shells (yellow, orange, purple white and ones with sunbeams as well!) so I’ll separate these shells in another post so you can see the difference. Unbelievable, right?
I have so many stories and videos to share with you from our trip but I thought I’d start you off with the most important photos… shells! And that ain’t all, folks. We found looots of other amazing shells and beach bling so I’ll try to get organized quickly so I can give you the whole run down on Turks and Caicos.
PS-Now that we are back and I have read all of your thoughtful comments and birthday wishes from so many of you on my last post… I am overwhelmed and humbled by your kindness. Really. Thank you so much for all of your sweet words that made this very special birthday even more special. It really was a shellebration of living life and loving Mother Nature so it’s nice to be able to share that with people that feel the same way… you. Shellers!
OH, hold on! Don’t forget… I’d love to meet you on one of the dates so click on the next image to book a day!
Seashell Star Of The Day
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Let the Shellabaloo begin with a bang!!! That’s right folks! On our first day of the Island Inn shelling extravaganza, Joe from Ohio found a very rare (for this area) LONG-SPINED STAR SHELL! Holy Toledo! Ok, (hee hee) he’s not from Toledo, Ohio… he and his wife Patty are from Akron and had no idea what this shell was.
Joe thought it was maybe the top of a cracked shell but as soon as I saw it I knew it was a rare find. For some reason I said it was a “sundial” and it stuck in my head since Im not used to seeing LONG-SPINED STAR SHELLS on our beaches. Whoops! So embarrassing! I’ve even blogged about LONG-SPINED STAR SHELLS when we found a few on a vacation to The Keys.
Here is Joe’s LONG-SPINED STAR SHELL in his hand to show you how big it is…
Congratshellations! And guess what… He didn’t even consider himself a real “sheller”. He just agreed to go on this vacation since Patty is an avid sheller. Ha! I think he might be hooked on shelling now too, huh? Here’s the aperture side of the shell.
I have got soooo many photos to show you since we’ve all been have a ball shelling and hanging out together but I had to post this first thing. I’ll have more photos and stories coming soon! But wait… now that I’m on the subject of Joe and his awesome shelling skills, I have to show you another beautiful shell he found too… a LIGHTNING WHELK! The mollusk was alive inside it so he had to put it back in the water where he found it but it is always a thrill to see this awesome creature.
I promise to get to everybody else and their found treasures very soon so I can introduce you to all of these fabulous shellers like …
…and like these fabulous shellers too!
Our Adventures Of Collecting Seashells in Thailand- Part 4 Phuket Shell Museum
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On our trip to Thailand, we not only found seashells on the beaches, we found shells adorning the yards on the island of Phuket. We were very fortunate to be invited to the home of international shell enthusiast Tom Rice who now lives in Phuket. As we arrived to his house, I was thrilled to see his garden lined with “yard shells”. I love to line my plant beds with old large shells too!
Tom is from Port Gamble, Washington where he opened Of Sea And Shore which is a shell museum exhibiting some of his collection over the past 50 years during collecting trips to more than 40 countries and through exchanges with collectors and purchases from dealers around the world. If “Of Sea And Shore” sounds familiar, he used to publish a magazine by the same name. The museum is still open but Tom moved to Rawaii Beach on Phuket about 10 years ago and seems to have found a pretty good island life.
Not only does he have shells in his museum, he has shells he hasn’t even finished identifying, organizing or cataloging. This is just one cabinet of shells! LOL He has so many shells, he is now selling his precious collection. To see his list CLICK HERE.
After having a great time talking shells and island life, Tom had a surprise for us so we hopped on the local transport- the Song Taew.
It’s really just a covered bed of a pickup truck with a couple of benches but it’s the cheapest way to get around….if you have lots of time to wait for it to just “happen” by.
Our surprise? He gave us a tour of the Phuket Seashell Museum! Tom’s friends, the Patamakanthin brothers opened this privately owned museum about 12 years ago.
Both Clark and I were surprised to see that there are over 2000 species on display. That’s a heck of a collection of shells!
Have you ever heard of a GOLDEN PEARL?
Neither had we until we saw this very rare MELO MELO PEARL that is not produced by an oyster but from the Melo melo or the common name BAILER SHELL. It got the common name because the native fishermen use it to bail out the water in their boats by scooping it out with this shell. They DO look like big scoops! Check them out…
Remember Clark found a SPOTTED TUN? Well, holy smokes! Look how big some of these different TUNS can get…
More shells, more eye candy…
Oh you know I love my wormies!
Look at these gorgeous WORM SHELLS from the Philippines…
We can’t thank you enough Tom, for such a wonderful day! We would never have gotten to meet if it wasn’t for our good friend MurexKen for introducing us to Tom… a BIG thank you to MK for being so thoughtful. It made out trip even more enjoyable.
PS- It has been storming in Florida all weekend with Tropical storm Debby and she will be pounding us for even another couple of days. Right before the lighting show began, Clark and I scoured the Sanibel beaches but we didn’t see loads of shells yet. Donnie, said that the shells at Blind Pass Captiva were all taken away. Lightning storms are not the time to be on the beach shelling so when Mother Nature stops with her thunder warnings and things calm down a bit, I’ll give you another report. Until then, I’ll show you CONES and MUREXES we found on our Thailand trip on my next post. (well, unless I have a local report that can’t wait!)
A Shelling Family Is A Happy Family
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Blind Pass Captiva still had plenty of seashells piled up along the shore line yesterday. I peeked in one of the shell buckets perched on top of the shell mound and gasped…
I asked Judy from Indiana if she realized the shell she had in her bucket and she said “I’m not sure what it is but it’s a piece from a big shell so that’s why I kept it”. Well it looks to me like she found a very large lip piece of a QUEEN HELMET shell that is not commonly found here. Good eye, Judy!
Judy was shelling with her family… and I mean to tell you, she has lots of family members that love to shell! A shelling family is a happy family. Here is Judy, Larry, Cary, Joe, Shaun, Jenny, Evy, Fiona and Sam. Beautiful, right?
I didn’t see many of the SANIBEL SIX, but I was amazed to see so many CERITHS washed in like this. Everybody was collecting them.
And AUGERS!
I also met Shelling Sister Wanda’s grandson Cody (PA) who kept racing up to her on the beach after his snorkeling expeditions to deposit his seashell loot into his shell bag. Treasure!
On a side line, I have to make a note that last year June 27, 2011 there was a juvenile FLORIDA BLACK BEAR sighted on Sanibel that was thought to have come over from Pine Island on a negative low tide. BLACK BEARS are native to Florida but not compatible with highly populated areas (with humans!). Now as an adult at 3 years old weighing 250 pounds he has “become a nuisance” by showing up in neighborhoods and getting into a trash can or two. I was so hoping we could catch a glimpse of him but as of 1 p.m. today, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission trapped him and relocated him off island. Relocated where? I have no clue. “They” won’t say. It’s bitter sweet. He was a very exciting visitor but I know he needs to find a mate and have a bigger place to roam before he gets in trouble on the island. I hope his new home offers him a long, happy and healthy life. Good bye, Mr. Black Bear.
Sanibel Black Bear photo by William Epranian on Facebook
