{"id":24620,"date":"2016-02-23T17:03:32","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T22:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/?p=24620"},"modified":"2018-05-14T18:14:55","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T22:14:55","slug":"what-do-sanibel-and-guantanamo-bay-cuba-have-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iloveshelling.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/23\/what-do-sanibel-and-guantanamo-bay-cuba-have-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do Sanibel And Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Have In Common?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Great Beach combing! We had such a fun weekend on Sanibel with Lee and Susan finding perfectly dried MILLIPEDE SEA STARS (aka NINE-ARMED SEA STARS) at Gulfside City Park beach…<\/p>\n

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

There are still so many STARFISH, FIGHTING CONCHS and other bling on the beach left over from the storms I showed you from my video last week (CLICK HERE<\/strong><\/a>). Now there are STARFISH in the high wrack lines that are dried out and shells without any critters in them. It was\u00a0like the perfect storm with variable conditions to make all this happen… it is mating season for FIGHTING CONCHS and HORSE CONCHS (so they were already out in masses in the shallow waters), we had days (actually weeks) of unseasonably high winds, high rough water (which washed all of those shells up high on the beach),\u00a0crazy cold unseasonable temperatures\u00a0(live creatures feel\u00a0lethargic), then the\u00a0receding gulf water after the storms calmed, \u00a0then coupled with extreme low tides… this is how many of these shells were stranded high on the beach.<\/p>\n

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

Looking through some of them, we all found abshellutley gorgeous empty fighting conchs with bright purple apertures. They are a-mazing and seriously, they have this color opening!!!<\/p>\n

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

We also ran over to Blind Pass Captiva and found a few goodies like some “Candy”…<\/p>\n

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

Oooooh, and look at Clark’s nice sized candy.<\/p>\n

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

Tom and Janet from NY (too shy for pics ;)) cleaned up with a bucket full of beauties on the new sand bar on the pass side of the jetty rocks.<\/p>\n

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

If you remember, we visited Lee and Susan a couple of time when they lived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>and found some amazing shells. Over the weekend, Lee was asked to be a speaker to share his shell collecting experiences in that part of Cuba at the 2016 Florida United Malacologists meeting at the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum<\/strong><\/span><\/a> while they were here visiting. He\u00a0did such a great job!<\/p>\n

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

Since Guantanamo Bay isn’t a place that most people get to visit, he described their shelling days of\u00a0“life on the rock” with a fabulous slide presentation and brought examples of the shells\u00a0they found in GTMO. He made it fun for us to go to our first “FUM” meeting.<\/p>\n

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

Thank you Colin, Rodger and Dr Leal (pictured\u00a0with us) for organizing the event and for encouraging us to come.<\/p>\n

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

So after seeing Lee’s presentation and reminiscing about our visits to GTMO, I had to look at my blog posts again to take a trip down memory lane. It’s still so unbelievable we got to go there (thanks again Lee and Susan) you’ve got to check out our trips again too – just\u00a0CLICK HERE<\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span> I really laughed out loud looking at one of my videos from the trip- I kept calling them “rocks” haha … it was\u00a0actually a beach full of CORAL chunks but I guess I was so overwhelmed it all just felt like I was picking through a huge pile of rocks. \u00a0Do you think I was a little excited???<\/p>\n