{"id":18623,"date":"2014-03-12T12:21:18","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T16:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/?p=18623"},"modified":"2014-03-12T15:49:26","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T19:49:26","slug":"smell-the-salt-in-the-sanibel-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/12\/smell-the-salt-in-the-sanibel-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Smell The Salt In The Sanibel Captiva Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Sunny blue skies, aqua water and warm breezes have filled our beach days in Southwest Florida this week- it’s been absolutely gorgeous!<\/p>\n

\"seashells<\/a><\/p>\n

But last week, we had some dark skies, rain and a cool (60s) weather front from the west move through to bring some unusual shells. Susan from Wisconsin found what looked to be an AMERICAN STAR-SHELL at Lighthouse Beach. That is a common shell in Caribbean waters but not often on Sanibel or Captiva. UPDATE: MurexKen<\/strong><\/a> notified me that this is most likely a MACULATED TOP SHELL which is from IndoPacific region…. NOT an AMERICAN STAR-SHELL. Oops!<\/p>\n

\"susan<\/a><\/p>\n

Check out my post from our Road Trip To The Florida Keys<\/strong><\/a> to see our AMERICAN STAR-SHELLS we found there to compare this…<\/p>\n

\"American<\/a><\/p>\n

Then compare it to the MACULATED TOP SHELL at\u00a0http:\/\/www.gastropods.com\/4\/Shell_244.shtml<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0. Yes, he’s absolutely right- it’s not a shell that is found in our area… it’s what I call a “Wedding Shell”. Folks who decorate for weddings and parties on our beaches buy bags of shells (which originate in the Philippines or other IndoPacific areas) \u00a0then spread them on the beach for decoration. Then they get washed out by the tide or thrown in and the shell gets washed up again to have a collector like \u00a0Susan pick it up. I will do a post on these “Wedding Shells” very soon- I promise since this happens way too often. Thank you MurexKen for pointing it out to me!<\/p>\n

\"susan<\/a><\/p>\n

Okay- lets get back to the beach….<\/p>\n

I saw the Shellucky Luckett Ladies<\/strong><\/a> again at the beach last week too when that cold front came through. Cuties!<\/p>\n

\"shellucky<\/a><\/p>\n

Martha (far right in the Shellucky Luckett Ladies photo) found this amazing LIONS PAW! Shellzam! See? Thats why they are called “Shellucky”!<\/p>\n

\"martha's<\/a><\/p>\n

When the sun came out and the weather warmed up, I headed to Captiva to do my favorite type of beach combing and experience\u00a0the art of shelling…. SMELL the salt in the air, FEEL the sand between your toes, LISTEN to Beach Sounds by Mother Nature, LOOK at the seascapes and seashells, and RELAX.<\/p>\n

\"beachcombing<\/a><\/p>\n

On my journey, I saw this…<\/p>\n

\"zig<\/a><\/p>\n

Such a gift. Thank you Mother Nature for this beautiful ZIG ZAG FLAT SCALLOP!<\/p>\n

\"beautiful<\/a><\/p>\n

But even better, I found a STRAWBERRY COCKLE<\/strong><\/a>! I know it doesn’t look like much and these are more common in the Caribbean as well, but they just aren’t common here so it’s always a happy day to find one (I think this makes only 4 in our collection from Sanibel or Captiva.<\/p>\n

\"strawberry<\/a><\/p>\n

This is exactly how I found this sweet SAND DOLLAR.<\/p>\n

\"sand<\/a><\/p>\n

I love calm days after a “storm” of busy days to slow stroll along the beach to see it lined with shellions of treasures like KITTENS PAWS, DARK CERITHS, CHESTNUT TURBANS, PAINTED EGG COCKLES and LADY-IN-WAITING CLAMS like these.<\/p>\n

\"collecting<\/a><\/p>\n

\"shelling<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunny blue skies, aqua water and warm breezes have filled our beach days in Southwest Florida this week- it’s been absolutely gorgeous! But last week, we had some dark skies, rain and a cool (60s) weather front from the west move through to bring some unusual shells. Susan from Wisconsin found what looked to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,3,41,224,47,1698],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blind-pass","category-captiva","category-flat-zigzag-scallop","category-lions-paw","category-sand-dollar","category-strawberry-cockle","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Nubb-4Qn","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18623"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18645,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18623\/revisions\/18645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}