seashells sanibel island inn

 I’ve often said that shellers are the nicest people on the planet and after spending five days with the 13 awesome shellers that joined us for Shellabaloo 3, I’m positive that it’s true. It was truly spectacsheller! We shelled the beach at our home base at Island Inn Sanibel

sanibel stoop shellabaloo 3

Angela found “candy”! LOL Yep, she found three sweet baby HORSE CONCHS and her sister Cathy found a huge SHARKS EYE and a beautiful LIGHTNING WHELK that was the most incredible shade of mauve I’ve ever seen. Don’t worry, I’ll show you a closer picture of it on my next post…

angela cathy shells shellabaloo 3

Marisa was the BANDED TULIP queen! I think she found about five of them within an hour.

marisa tulip shell shellalbaloo 3

Everybody was finding great shells… Jessica (who helped organize Shellabaloo for the Island Inn) found her first ALPHABET CONE!

jessica alphabet cone shellabaloo 3

We were so fortunate to have choices of shelling the wrack lines or shelling the water line. Fun!

sanibel stoop jim shellabaloo 3

Gregg and Trish and the rest of us had a crazy fun time on our boat ride for a shelling trip to the island of Cayo Costa with Captiva Cruises

gregg trish cruise cayo costa shellabaloo 3

Look who joined us on our cruise! Rusty and Donna from Shellabaloo 2! Thank you so much for joining us- so fun to see yall again…

rusty donna boat to cayo costa shelling

Oh gosh, there were so many other people I want to show you that were on the boat too but they deserve a whole other post on their own. I’ll show you more soon.

Once we docked at Cayo Costa State Park marina, we hopped on the island shuttle for a ride to gulf side for our next shelling adventure…

cayo costa shuttle shellabaloo 3

Nancy put on her snorkel gear and found a live SAND DOLLAR within seconds. She put this one back in the water to live a happy life then found several white ones that werent alive. Keepers!

nancy live sand dollar shellabaloo 3

Donnie headed towards the high wrack lines to look for some unusual BEACH BLING. He found something really cool! He found an empty baby turtle nest that probably hatched just a few days before we got there. Just in front of Donnie in the photo, you can see the empty shells surrounding the hole in the sand. There were no stakes around the nest to mark or monitor it for research so I doubt anybody knew it was there. It looks like the babies made so… Hooray!

donnie with turtle egg shells from hatching on beach

He also found SEA BEANS and a few pieces of gorgeous SEA GLASS while walking next to the high wrack line on the beach…

donnie sea beans and seaglass shellabaloo 3 cayo costa

Jennifer found a live ARROWHEAD SAND DOLLAR in knee deep water. After oohing and ahhing at this fascinating creature, she gently put it back in the water where she found it…

jennifer live arrowhead sand dollar shellabaloo 3 cayo

Annette found one too! I rarely see the ARROWHEAD SAND DOLLARS so it was a treat to see how purple they are when they are still alive.

Annette with live arrowhead sand dollar

Woop! Woop! Marie found a white KEY-HOLE SAND DOLLAR so she got to keep this one…

marie with sand dollar cayo costa shellabaloo 3

We had such a great day finding all sort of shells and BEACH BLING like sand dollars and fossil SHARKS TEETH.

shelling cayo costa shellabaloo 3

A good time was had by all!

lou donny shellabaloo 3 shelling

But hold on, this shelling party was just getting started. We carried our shelling party into the evening as Martha and Marie and our group witnessed a glorious sunset.

martha marie sunset shellabaloo 3

Then we hung out together for cocktails hours…

Pam Rambo with Shellabaloo 3 girls

We were able to share our stories of our day and get to know each other.

shellabaloo 3 party doc fords

We all had so much in common!

shellabaloo 3 blanaid doc fords

We all seem to be kindred spirits.

shellabaloo 3 chris doc fords

Oh and let me tell you, we did not miss any meals. We had fabulous picnic lunches every day that were out of this world and we ate delicious dinners at different restaurants every single night. All of the meals were included in the package!

dinner shellabaloo 3

Even the FroYo party at Zebra Frozen Yogurt was part of the Shellabaloo package. Yummy!!!!

zebra frozen yogurt sanibel shellabaloo 3

I cant even find the words to tell you how much this week has meant to me and that it has been so special to have spent so much quality time together and have gotten to really bonded as a group. Since our 5 days together just ended today, I have lots more photos to sort through but I saved the best for last…  Shell ‘N Tell photos! And I have the results of our Shellabaloo Shellinger Hunt. You wont believe all of the A-Mazing shells this group found and the creative shell displays they put together. So Stay Tuned!

Shellabaloo 3 Doc Fords Sanibel