lightning whelk with dark toplightning whelk with dark top

Shellzam! Brenda from Indiana found an empty, big, beautiful LIGHTNING WHELK on our iLoveShelling Sight Sea-R cruise to Big Hickory Island today. Wow!

Brenda with large lightning whelk

Cuties Rachel and Danielle helped her shellebrate while feeling happy with their finds too on this fabshellous adventure. So fun!

Rachel, Brenda, Danielle find seashells on a west coast Florida island

It was a fun and gorgeous morning pulling up to this small island sand bar at low tide.

Florida shelling boat anchored on a sand bar

Emily and Lily from Kentucky found SAND DOLLARS, shells and some cool bling…

Visiting from kentucky, emily lily find sw florida shells

some shells found in sw florida

Jessica (NY) found a nice size ALPHABET CONE, SHARKS EYES, ROSE PETAL TELLINS and lots of WORMS SHELLS and her mom Kathy found a very cool ROSEATE SPOONBILL feather in the wrack line.

Jessica and Kathy find shells and feathers on an island in Florida

Sandy handful of seashells of southwest florida

Dima and Amy (MI) found some beauties!

Dima and Amy MI find shell on west coast of Florida

shells found in Estero

Kelsea and Lori from South Carolina showed me their fave finds which included that cool BRYOZOAN COLONY, LACE MUREX, an awesome dark twisty WORM SHELL, GAUDY NATICA, WHITE CRESTED TELLIN and ROSE PETAL TELLINS.

Kelsea and Lori from SC find shells on a shelling cruise

favorite shells on a Florida west coast shelling adventure

Kim and Jon from St Louis showed me their faves too… a sweet baby ALPHABET CONE, a gorgeous FLAT SCALLOP, SUNRAY VENUS, ROSE PETAL TELLINS  and wormies.

Kim and Jon from St Louis find shells on shelling cruise

rose petal tellins , flat scallop, coffee melampus and alphabet cone

Leah, Julianna, June (MD) and Gramma Diane (NJ) found most of their shells in a little honey hole in the water. Way to go girls!

Leah, Julianna, June and Diane find seashells in southwest florida

On the way to the island, we saw ROSEATE SPOONBILLS, STINGRAYS and DOLPHINS as I chose a winner for the Sealife By Congress sterling silver sand dollar pendant giveaway. Congratshellations Mackenzie! It was such a pleasure to meet you and your mom Tammi and your sister Peyton.

Mackenzie Tammi Peyton win jewelry on shelling cruise

Everybody else on the cruise was happy too. They received a $25 certificate towards a jewelry piece of their own. Yay! Thank you Sealife By Congress– thats so nice!

Jewelry certificate Sanibel

I think everybody on the cruise found ROSE PETAL TELLINS and CORAL.

rose petal tellins with coral and worm shells

And everybody found WORMIES!

worm shells button and pear whelk on sandy hand

First Mate Meg even shelled for 5 minutes and found a BEACH BLING “Sea Hero” that guarded some of her other finds. cute!

Meg's minutes of shell finds

Oh and Ingrid (from my last post) joined us as well and showed us her JUNONIA she found in front of the Island Inn on Sanibel yesterday. Boom Shellalaka!

ingrid found a junonia in sw florida

We were so lucky to have a beautiful warm sunny day to spend 4 hours hanging out and shelling together.

boating to a shelling hole in sw florida

I am so happy to announce that starting in August, Sight Sea-R Cruises has changed the hours for their regular shelling cruises EVERY Wednesday to go from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm (instead of leaving at 10am). Spectacsheller! So our iLoveShelling Sight Sea- R shelling cruises will be the same.

sight sea-r adventures aug-oct 2014