Tidal Pool: Life

"At the beach, life is different. Time doesn't move hour to hour but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides and follow the sun."~Unknown

We had another good evening of shelling the tidal pool....I'm afraid it won't last too much longer because the low tide is getting into the night and the tides are going to be 'less low' (does that make sense?) We got lots and lots of mini shells this time!! (Sorry about the quality of the pics, guess my focus wasn't working too well!)

Banded tulips, a mini true tulip, and Florida Cones above the apple murex

Hubby's Pear Whelk, Alphabet Cone and paper fig, those are kittens paws on the left, appropriately named don't you think?

Olives below a faded king's crown and sharks eye; fighting conchs at the left then lightning whelk minis, Horse conch minis and button shells!

We call these cat's eyes! and 4 mini pear whelks

There are so many living creatures in the tidal pools, lots of activity, everywhere!! Here are just a few pics of what we saw!

Peek-a-boo crab....now you see him

Now you don't!!

How about this for a fancy garage? see the crab?

 A live pear whelk....I put him right back, I promise!!

A live fighting conch...see his eyes sticking out the end?

Can you see the crab hiding out in this pic?

A hermit on the run!!

A live Banded tulip, has his 'door' open and running through the pool!

My favorite, a Horse Conch, or Florida Conch...his body is BRIGHT Orange!! This one is about 7 inches long!

A banded hemit!!

This guy was HUGE and was digging in the sand...video later!!

A huge starfish

 Unfortunately, while shelling in a tidal pool, some things will hide in the shells we pick up, since they are usually still underwater when we get them, we don't know they are there until I boil the shells when we get back to the condo! That is what happened here!! 

Notice how tiny he is! He was evidently tucked up in one of the shells! I felt terrible!

 While we were Chillin' on the beach this massive unusual looking boat came by...I zoomed in to get these pics....you can see how huge it is by looking at the size of the guy driving it!! It's so low in the water!!

Tonight's shelling was pretty disappointing, the tide never dropped very low before dark, so we need to regroup tomorrow and figure something else out!! But we're pretty resourceful...we'll figure something out....or maybe just RELAX and let the world go by!! :)

::Hugs::

Cheri