Donax beach access Sanibel

I can hear the rumbling of a summer storm nearing my house this very minute. My first thought  …. no beach for me in the next few hours. My second thought….unplug the laptop! I don’t want any power surges to fry my little coconut telegraph to the world.

Dark clouds gulf

In the past few days, I haven’t spent much time on the beach since we’ve had so much thunder and lightning with our rain showers and the wind has been coming from the east (not great for shelling). So instead of rambling on about what I’ve been up to the last few days….. oh wait, I will tell yall about my new purchase since yet another camera experienced a slow death on a salty beach of the islands.

Sanibel beach path wg6

It’s just a point and shoot type camera because obviously, I can’t be trusted with a really expensive high quality camera any where near sand- ugh. It’s another Panasonic (like I had before) I bought at Costco but it’s got a few new bells and whistles in this newer model DMC-ZS10.

Clark orange sky on beach

We went to West Gulf Drive on Friday to try the new camera out and so Clark could inspect the area the Carla found her JUNONIA.

old conch beached

There were still a few small shell piles of SCALLOPS and CLAMS in the wrack lines but caught in some of the grasses, I found this fantastic old surf worn HORSE CONCH I’ll use for a yard shell.

Shelling with buckets

We saw a few other shellers but not many buckets filled with goodies. I did see a lot of people with fishing poles.

Sanibel fishing  dark sky

I saw this one guy pull up a FIGHTING CONCH with his toes while he was fishing. Double duty!

Sanibel shelling fishing

Right after I took this picture, I heard a clap of thunder to let me know it was time to get off the beach.

Sanibel fishing

I’m pretty happy with the new camera but I hope I didn’t whine ramble too much today about the isolated storms and about my bad luck with cameras wearing out too quickly (I’ll spare you from the other broken “appliances” stories from the weekend too).

shells on gulf beach

But no worries! I was able to upgrade my camera and feel fortunate I could get it for a fair price. It’s also typical  that summer storms will happen on a tropical island. The good news is …. there is no doubt there will be sunshine and happy shelling right around the corner that I will be able to share with you through pictures on my new camera!

Clark walking surf for shells