sanibel stoop for shells heidi

If you only like to shell at the lowest tide of the day, then you might be missing some great opportunities to see a shell pile from on the incoming tide. These Sanibel Stoop-ers caught the perfect incoming tide to snag some great shells being tossed up on the beach.

sanibel stoop for shells harold

Actually, we met one of the Stoop-ers a couple of weeks ago. It’s Heidi from Kansas I blogged about while at Fort Myers Beach a couple of weeks ago! This time her family joined her in the shelling fun…. Jim, (Heidi), Pat and Heidi’s dad and newbie sheller Harold (Washington state) …. who, I must say, looks like he was tremendously enjoying his first time shelling.

Heidi KC family shelling sanibel

He absolutely loves the SURF CLAMS! The plastic bag on the right is filled to the brim with them. They all kept saying “We don’t get shells like this where we live!”

bucket full of sanibel shells

 Heidi definitely doesn’t get ALPHABET CONES where she lives so she let out a yelp when she plucked this beauty out of the water.

alphabet cone alphie heidi KS

I took a photo of their hands with all of their favorite shells and for some reason… the photo didn’t take. Grrrrrrr. I hate when that happens! I’m so sorry- I wanted to show off all of your great finds! But this next photo basically shows the treasures that were filling their hands too- these are some of my finds. They had a few chips of JUNONIA as well…

sea shells at blind pass sanibel florida beach

Where did we find these you ask? This was about half a mile down from Blind Pass on the Sanibel side. See that palm tree in the background  of this next photo? That’s right where that exposed old wooden sea wall is so we were about 75 yards further down the beach.

seashell wrack blind pass sanibel

Along with the exposed sea wall, there are now lots of exposed tree roots too from erosion. I’ve never seen these exposed that much! These are perfect areas for shells to caught so I always like to search around any debris but this morning they were bare. I took this photo more towards the lowest tide when the shells had not even began to wash up on the beach. I didn’t have time to check them again after the big wash up… hmmm that might be my spot tomorrow.

looking for shells near tree roots sanibel

I was thrilled to see Wendy again too! I met her last year after she found a gorgeous LIONS PAW and a huge HORSE CONCH …  and she’s having just a good luck this year.

wendy md with shells from sanibel florida

She found the SANIBEL SIX! Along with her SANIBEL SIX (with 2 ALPHABET CONES), she found SAND DOLLARS and a huge WHELK this time. The WHELK looks a little beat up now but it’s going to clean up nicely.

sand dollars sea shells from sanibel florida wendy

I hope these shells stay here for a few more days. Please Mother Nature? I’d like to find the rest of that JUNONIA!

seashells wash up on sanibel

I’m so excited for our boat ride and shelling adventure to Cayo Costa on Thursday morning! Come with us! You can still join us by calling Captiva Cruises 239-472-5300 to reserve your spot on the iLoveShelling cruise November 2, 2013 at 9 a.m. Or CLICK HERE for more info and future Shelling Adventures…

shell adventures trips by pam

 PS- I know I promised the video of my low tide shelling the other morning but I still can’t get it to work. More technical difficulties… but no worries. I’ll give it another try tomorrow.