After a rainy Southwest Florida weekend, we had beautiful clear, sunny weather for our iLoveShelling adventure on our Captiva Cruises boat ride to shelling on Cayo Costa. Within minutes, Michelle from NY found a SCOTCH BONNET. Shellzam!
In the same area on the bay side of the island where Michelle found her BONNET, Bob from Illinois found a beautiful double SUNRAY VENUS.
I love the color and pattern of this shell!
It was so good to see Karen (Houston) and her mom Melody again on this cruise- we go way back! I feel like I have known Karen for so long since she won the first GiveAway I ever did here on my blog…. that was 2010 and I’ll never forget her. I don’t even make those notecards I painted and designed any more but it was a fun project while it lasted. Anyhoooo…. I was thrilled to see that she found a BABY EAR on the beach.
There were quite a few people who picked up BABYS EARS…
Rick, Lucas, Amy, Abby, Lindsey and Adam from Massachusetts founds bags of shells. They collected lots of the GIANT ATLANTIC COCKLE, Adam found a SAND DOLLAR and Lucas collected a sweet BABYS EAR (pictured above).
Cole and Jake from New Jersey are quite the shell hunters. Among all sorts of different shells they found, Cole’s best finds were ANGEL WINGS and a BABY EAR. Jake found a perfect SAND DOLLAR. Great finds!
Kim and Ed from Rhode Island were back on the cruise again too! This time showing off their faves from the day- a huge WORM SHELL and a sweet little SAND DOLLAR.
Connie from Wisconsin was visiting her local friend Shelley who lives in Cape Coral. I told Shelley I wanted her name! LOL
Gail (Florida) and Emily (Maryland) have been friends since high school and still get together for girls trips… this time a shelling adventure!
These are just a few shells we pulled out of one of the bags of shells they collected.
It was so nice to meet Tom from Indiana. He said his family used to think he was crazy since he loved to collect shells but now his whole family is hooked after dragging them to Sanibel.
Tom was impressed to see how big and colorful the JINGLES are on Cayo Costa as well as finding teeny tiny SEA URCHINS completely dried on the high wrack line.
Sherry from Knoxville was happy tot find 2 perfect ANGEL WINGS…
Terry and Dave from Illinois found a few goodies but the jewel in their bag was a GAUDY NATICA.
Beautiful!
We always see oodles of live CLOUDY PERIWINKLES on the tree roots around the tip of Cayo Costa but rarely see the empty shells so I snapped a photo of this one in the sand. Because I had to bend down to get a closeup, I saw that tiny yellow LUNATE CRASSENTELLA. I haven’t seen them in a while.
Mrs. Lueders was happy shelling for the minis too…
She found plenty of the LUNATE CRASSENTELLAS so it was fun for her to find a new species she hadn’t collected before.
I was thrilled to find those tiny dried SEA URCHINS since we rarely see them that small (without having to pick through the SEA SQUIRTS that are still on Sanibel– hahaha) . Also, there were plenty of double JINGLES as well. It’s not as common to find the JINGLE with both valves but they were plentiful on Cayo and also at Gulfside City Park in the last weeks.
But my most thrilling find was a double WHITE CRESTED TELLIN! Yes, both valves still attached so I couldn’t believe my luck. I know it doesn’t look like much but I’ve been looking for one ever since I saw how pretty Nancy’s shell was in my post in 2011 called “I’m Tellin On Some Tellins“. I have found plenty of the single valves but this is my first one that was still together. Yay! Thanks to Nancy for sharing her find with me so I could have one more thing to look forward to the day I could find one.
Everybody on our shelling trip seemed to find something that made them happy and if it wasn’t a shell that they had wanted to find, each passenger received a $25 gift certificate to Sealife By Congress.
Wow! Thank you Sealife By Congress for being so good to the shelling community. Yes, you sure do make us happy. So join us on another iLoveShelling shelling adventure… CLICK HERE for upcoming dates.
What a fab day you all had! I love all the shells and photos of happy shellers! Thank you for taking the time to keep us all updated. One of these days soon I’ll get out there to join in. :)
~Karen
This looks like such fun, Pam! I’d love to go on one, but my vacation timing is always horrid when it comes to your excursions or Shellabaloo. I’ll be in Sanibel tomorrow through the rest of the week, though — hope to catch you on the beach!
Thought it would be a good trip, looks like it was.
I’ve been missing the beach since we left in spring! Congrats on the awesome finds, keep the posts coming! ;)
Very nice fresh entire crested tellin. Well done. :)
Love the double white crested tellins, jingle and sunray venus. Hope the nice weather continues and the sea squirts wash away. Happy shelling. Pat
Pam, It was a pleasure to meet you and have you show us all the treasures in the sand. Thanks to you, I added tiny sea urchins, a mini blue periwinkle and a false angel wing to my growing collection, and will keep the memory of shelling on Cayo Costa close while the weather grows cold in Kansas City. I made a wish on the Shelling Tree to come back soon, so we count on seeing you again in the future. Thank you for your gift to all of us for Iloveshelling.com!
Kathy and David
OMG Kathy! I didn’t even get a photo of you???? U r such a doll and David as well- I get so scatter brained some time when I get so excited to meet so many shellers at once. I’m so glad we got to spend some time together chatting and just the 2 of us walking the beach. Safe travels my dear!
Wow look at the size of the Sunray Venue, just beautiful. And CrazyKaren we should call her the Baby Ear’s whisperer, she told me where to find them last year.
Such a beautiful Sunray Venus Clam..pattern&size are Perfect!! A treasure!
Looks like a fantastic haul of shells this trip!
Even tho I did not get the kings crown that I was hoping for. I did find the crucifix that you told me brings good luck. I hope that is true but sad to say so far not true. After I got back to my room at Island Inn, I saw that the bag of shells that my daughter had found and I kept in in order to ship home with my loot was missing.
As it turned out, the housekeeper saw the bag that my daughter gave me to send was thrown out by a houskeeper who did not know not to touch anything that is not in the wastebaskets. This was devastataing to me as my daughter spent many hours shelling in various beaches to get her treasures. I am sure you can understand how upset we are that this staff member threw out my daughter’s shells. She did not seem to understand the importance of keeping our treasures.
Oh Cindy- Im so sorry to hear that! For one, I think I must have been a little tired on our cruise- i wasn’t remembering names and faces- ack! I hate that i didn’t realize it was THE Cindy Emerick that found the crucifix. I think Im losing it. But I’m feeling worse your daughter’s shells are gone. I talked to Island Inn and they are checking into it.
Again, im so sorry for everything!
another great day of shelling ,lots of nice finds and a good day in the sun but there will be more for everybody ,thanx for the post love them r.g.stein
look forward to seeing all the updates that you post. We are so ready to be a part of the beach roamers We are headed to Sanibel this March for a week. We can’t , I cant wait to shell every day. Keep up the good work Sandy