Archive for Worm Shell
Seashells On Cloud Nine
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The shelling was excellent all weekend after the storm early last week. Not only was I tickled to find this large TRUE TULIP, the FLAT SCALLOPS, HORSIES, the WORMIE and a piece of aqua SEA GLASS, I think finding 2 pieces of JUNONIA and 2 pieces of LION’S PAW is what turbo charged me to run from beach to beach to search the clues for the unbroken loot. The after-burners went into high gear. I know you already heard I hit gold with my JUNONIA and LION’S PAW but now they are all cleaned up so I have to show them just one more time (I know, I know… just humor me 
)….
Ahhhhh. Two out of The Elite Three. So for a while, I’m not coming down from being on cloud nine.
I saw lots of other shellers and friends enjoying the gifts of the sea too. Sunrise shellers Robert and Eileen…
Robertfound a LION’S PAW too! It has some barnacles but who cares! It is a huge whole one and will clean up nicely I’m sure.
The locals were out playing on the beach too. I ran into my friend Mary (Captiva) …
She found an ALPHABET CONE and a bright orange HORSE CONCH. Candy!
More of my buddies! I found Betsy and Sherrill sittin’ n siftin’ through another big shell pile…
King and Queen of this shell mountain, Kathy and Tony had it all to themselves…
Other than shells, the storm brought in lots of other Beach Bling too. One of my favorites being pieces of CORAL.
I still have more photos of cool stuff I found on the beaches..but not the time to show them all again. We have Hurricane Rina out in the Caribbean which may turn towards Florida from Mexico so we have to keep an eye out to see what she does. I just hope everybody is safe from this Category 2 Hurricane headed for Cancun, Cozumel then turning towards Cuba. When everybody is safe, then we can think about the shells she might produce. I promise, I’ll catch up tomorrow and keep you updated.
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’. 
Another Sanibel Cyber Shelling Adventure
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I found that CARRIER SHELL I showed you on my last post Carried Away By A Carrier Shell but since I was so excited, I didn’t get to show you the rest of the shells I found. Aren’t the beautiful? It was an amazing day.
But wait, I’ve got a shell pile for you cyber shellers out there! I promise, I did not touch one thing in this pile before I took the next picture. But be careful! If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you might have a little sensory overload. Use caution, please.
OMG I just looked at that photo again! I missed another CONE!!! Did you spot it? TWO cones…. and I just looked again- maybe THREE. I worked this pile a while so I could have gotten it on another swipe but I definitely didn’t get it on the first run. I guess I was gathering every ounce of patience not to pluck this WORMIE, CANDIE and ALPHIE (notice the ultra cuteness clue of the “ie”endings) off the beach so I could take the picture.
So just a few minutes after finding this little seashell honey hole, I found the CARRIER SHELL and had to do a video. I hope you can see some of the other shells in that “troth” (I don’t think I’ve ever called it that before, but it sure did seem like one- LOL).
Oh yeah, something else cool…there was a live four legged BRITTLE STAR in one of the tidal pools.
This Weekend Rocked
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My friend Diane joined Clark and me on the beach off West Gulf Drive yesterday for a lovely afternoon of shell seeking. We wanted to find a big WHELK like last week but she was just as happy with a candy HORSIE CONCH.
She was even happier to find 9 BABY’S EARS…
Then to top it all off she framed her Sanibel Six in a very creative MANGROVE SEED POD picture frame.
I met another blog buddy Candice from St Pete! She saw Clark with his shelling backhoe and asked him “Are you Clark?” LOL
She said she wasn’t finding much, so I walked with her just for a few minutes and we found a few goodies… 3 ALTERNATE TELLINS, a PURPLISH TAGELUS, COQUINA, FALSE ANGEL WING, 2 CONCHS, a LACE MUREX, a TURBAN and a beautiful BABY’S EAR.
All of Candice’s shells were found on the high and dry wrack line on the far right of this next picture. On the sand bars, there were hundreds of FIGHTING CONCHS and a few bigger shells…
Aha! That’s where the big WHELK was that we were looking for. Jennifer (Sanibel) had already found that prize AND three ALPHIES!
Nice finds, Jennifer!
Clark didn’t find another big WHELK but he did find a huuu-jahh piece of WORM ROCK. He knows this is another fave of mine. It doesn’t look like anything fabulous in this photo but trust me, it’s cool. This is a rock formed by a colony of VARIABLE WORM SNAILS (not exactly the same thing as my “wormie shells” we find) and it’s not every day for us to find it this big.
Look at it close up…
Rock on and have a happy Monday!
Sanibel Seashell Update: Blind Pass to Lighthouse Beach
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In the last couple of days, the seashells have been rolling in with the surf at Blind Pass Sanibel and a few so far at the lighthouse too. The above photo of a sampling of what we found so you can enjoy virtual shelling ASAP if you can’t be here right now. So go ahead…. click on the photo above and I’ll wait for you so I can show you the rest of the photos. (whistle, hum, whistle….la, la, la….)
Okay, you ready for the rest?
Look at the first photo on the bottom left part of the pic. You see where the yellowish color meets the greenish water? That’s that drop off I was talking about yesterday and where we found most of the better shells (like my ALPHY). This was at Blind Pass Sanibel Sunday afternoon.
Then the water was receding with the low tide and they started washing up on the beach….
Dayna from Sanibel (I’m sorry if I misspelled your name! My notes disappeared) with her big catch of the day… a huge HORSE CONCH. And her daughter!. Congrats!
Mindy from New York was specifically looking for collecting KITTENS PAWS.
There were oodles of them along with COCKLES and JEWELBOXES….
Oooooh, I found a FLAT!
Then we walked the beach by the lighthouse last night and found the PEN SHELLS and double DOSINIAS were littered along the shore. That’s a great sign for great shelling to come! The PEN SHELLS are the first ones to get dislodged out in the gulf after a rough seas so this could mean great shells will wash up the next few days.
Nice LIGHTNING WHELK, huh?
This teeny tiny baby crab was alive and crawling around on this very cool old SHARK’S EYE. Can you believe the color?
This LONG SPINED SEA URCHIN was still alive so he went gently back into the water.
I met 2 great gals from Kentucky looking for WENTLETRAPS Sharon and Renee (friends of HL!). I think the had been picked over by someone else but we still found about 10 wentles and lots of other goodies.
Goodies like this fabulous WORM SHELL Clark found…
We are having a very dark, rainy day with rumblings of thunder predicted all day so I’ll just wait another day to go shelling and another night to see skies like last night on the beach. I couldn’t decide which photo I like better so I’m posting both.
