diane in surf

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.

Diane with beach candy

She was even happier to find 9 BABY’S EARS…

babys ears on pen shell

Then to top it all off she framed her Sanibel Six in a very creative MANGROVE SEED POD picture frame.

sanibel 6 mangrove seed

I met another blog buddy Candice from St Pete! She saw Clark with his shelling backhoe and asked him “Are you Clark?” LOL

Candice iLS sanibel

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.

candice shells

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…

shells at low tide

Aha! That’s where the big WHELK was that we were looking for. Jennifer (Sanibel) had already found that prize AND three ALPHIES!

Jennifer's shells

Nice finds, Jennifer!

Jennifer Sanibel cones whelk

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.

worm rock

Look at it close up…

worm rock copy

Rock on and have a happy Monday!

sand dollar in tidal pool