seashells from San Diego gift

Our shelling day cruising to the island of Cayo Costa started off with a totally fun surprise after meeting my new favorite sheller Ethan. He brought me a beautiful box of shells that he and his mom Tiffany picked up from their beach in San Diego. How sweet! With his grandmom Daira, they had 3 generations of shellers on the cruise with us…

pam rambo iLoveShelling.com with shelling family

I was tickled to see Denise again after meeting her last year during an amazing experience of being interviewed for The New York Times. Denise, Clark and I were all quoted in a story about shelling and Sanibel (CLICK HERE for the story). It is a day we’ll never forget!  This time I got to meet her husband Paul as well…

paul denice captiva shelling cruise

Oh how I looove my Shelling Sistahs! And they are another 3 generations of shellers too! Maria, Morgan and Tricia from Ohio are waaaay adorable.

3 shelling generations iLoveShelling.com tee shirts

We were all very antsy to get going on our adventure!

shelling group ready for Cayo Costa cruise Captiva

The cruise over to the island gave us all time to chat, laugh and meet each other. I loved meeting Bubbie, Paula and Stephanie from Ohio who enjoyed every second of the boat ride. They brought a bag of shell with them to share with the rest of the group. Paula said ” Each day on vacation, we go through our shells at night and only keep the best ones. The next day we either give away or take back the shells to the beach that don’t make the cut.” Clark and I do the same thing so I loved that they felt the same way.

shellers cruise for seashells

Lynn, Kim and Stacy from Kentucky enjoyed looking through that bag of shells that Bubbie, Paula and Stephanie brought. They found a few shared treasures like a tip-less olive shell perfect for a Shell String bracelet. Shellers are so thoughtful!

shelling vacation captiva cruise

Another 3 generations of shellers! It was so good to see the Shell Raisers again! I met this awesome family of Shell Raisers Amelia, Chris, Ava, Cheryl, Sarah and Eric last year and love their passion and fun they all have shelling together.

shell raisers iLoveShelling captiva cruise

We pulled up to the beach and…. Oh boy… then it happened. The weather turned. The sky started to turn black in the distance and the boat captains said the radar wasn’t looking good… we had to turn around and go back.  Oh No! We could almost hear those shells calling our names! Knowing that they wanted to keep us safe and sound to shell another day… we pulled away from the beach as we all showed our best pouty faces… (heehee)

rain out pouty faces cayo costa

 More cutie pouty faces… LOL

rain out cute pouty lips

 Then Chris smiled and said “Well, We’ll all live to shell another day”. Yep. We shellers have learned … There is no crying in Shelling! We all understood and after getting back to the dock, we made other plans. Just like that. Let’s move on and not dwell on it. I think having a good attitude paid off… The sky cleared! Paula had mentioned she found a few good shells at Blind Pass Captiva the night before… so lots of us ended up heading to Blind Pass.

sanibel stoop captiva crouch shelling

We found shells!

captiva seashells nutmeg sharks eye

Louie and Dee from Illinois headed there straight from the cruise and found BANDED TULIPS, SHARKS EYES, OLIVES, WHELKS and other goodies to fill their shell bags.

shelling captiva after cruise

Dee was especially fond of her LIGHTNING WHELK and huuuuge OYSTER SHELL.

shells found captiva island florida

This is just another reason why i Love Shelling… the true spirit of loving life lives inside a sheller’s heart. Shelling brings us together just like this…

shelling group i Love Shelling captiva

Join us on an iLoveShelling Shell Adventure! CLICK HERE for dates and info.

seashell shelling adventures pam