shells on the beach at Sanibel Island October 2014

There were lots of shells on the beach and “Bling” at Gulfside City Park to comb through this morning… Yay!  Since we had some nice winds from the Gulf Of Mexico this past week, the beach is littered with lots of white clam shells and there are some nice colorful treasures in there too like these WHELKS, CONCHS, MUREXES and purple SEA WHIPS.

shells with a sea whip

Along with finding some beautiful shells today, you might just see mounds of SEA SQUIRTS too. The winds pushed these TUNICATES (to learn more CLICK HERE) up on the beaches along with plenty of seashells. The birds were loving it! They had a feast at this SEA SQUIRT salad bar…

birds eating sea squirts on sanibel beach

Even if you combed through the SEA SQUIRTS, there are hidden gems like this double SUNRAY VENUS…

double sunray venus clam shell in sea squirts

Look how this double SPINY JEWELBOX is camouflaged in the SEA SQUIRTS…

double jewel box shell in sea squirts

I placed a few of the beauties I found on top of a cool SEA SPONGE but unfortunately I covered most of it with shells… oops!

horse conchs with shells

Gwen from Texas was thrilled to find a few goodies on the beach to fill her shell bag.

shell collector on Sanibel

As always, its such a pleasure to run into Smitty on the beach to hear about his latest finds. He told me he found a huge empty HORSE CONCH, a SCOTCH BONNET and so many other great finds yesterday. Yep… yesterday. We missed it! Thats ok, I am so content with my finds this morning and it tickled me so much to see him and all of his shelling paraphernalia- he’s Smitty The Shelling Machine.

FYI- Clark’s been wanting a collapsable picker upper shelling tool for traveling (in Smitty’s right hand) so if I find one, I’ll let you know how Clark likes it too. That little blue scoop is great but its just a weeee too long for a travel bag and the last one broke when we took off the basket.

Smitty with shelling paraphernalia

Last night as I was surfing through the iLoveShelling Facebook age, I saw Arthur Lyon’s photo he posted. Wow! Those are some awesome shells. He said “Cool front pushed a ton of shells onto the beaches today…”. He said he found these near Gulfside City Park so of course thats why I was there this morning. I didn’t see Arthur but I did see his cousins and they told me how crazy the shelling was yesterday. Nice haul!

arthur lyons shell photo

So while Arthur and Smitty were scooping up SCOTCH BONNETS, HORSE CONCHS, FIGS and TULIPS I went to Blind Pass to find thousands of SEA SQUIRTS without the huge shell lines like GULFSIDE CITY PARK had. hahaaha Thats ok- I still found some treasures.

sea squirts tunicates on beach at Blind Pass Captiva

I don’t feel like I was a day late because if I had been there yesterday, I may not have been there this morning to find those sweet baby HORSE CONCHS I showed in the photos above. I looooove those Candy Corns. They are my fave Happy Candy and remind me that we are so very fortunate to be able to comb these beautiful beaches to find so many gifts from the sea every day.

Sanibel shells and beach combers at sunrise

 Let’s go shelling together! This is a perfect week for an iLoveShelling trip to Big Hickory Island.

Join me on Wednesday October 8, 2014 at 8:30am on a spectacsheller shelling adventure! Call 239-765-7272 or CLICK HERE. 

shelling adventures trips by pam

Dont forget about booking for January 5-8 Shellabaloo- Tickets are selling fast!

shellabaloo January 2015