Last Day in Paradise

First let me say that I am sitting here at my dining room table with this wonderful view through our wall of windows! Have I mentioned lately that I just love it here?

The shelling hasn't been that great this trip, but it doesn't make me wish for a minute that I was anywhere else.

I got out early this morning, just before the sun came up. It never disappoints...doesn't it make you just say ahhhhhhh?

The first thing I noticed was the addition of tulip and murex whelk cases.

Tulip egg cases 

murex egg cases

There are usually lightning whelk cases in abundance, but not many of these, this morning there were several! That's a good thing....more shells on the way!

There were so many shells on the beach, I call them 'white shells' good for crafting, but I usually don't collect them, they were all the way down the beach.

The water was just crystal clear, absolutely gorgeous! It felt like you could see forever...just not very many shells...

There were however, large areas where there were many broken sand dollars...the brown 'bits' are small chunks of them, washing up in the surf.

Not sure what happened, but it was sad to see.

I did have a little excitement when a dolphin came up behind me and was obviously fishing for the hundreds of minnows that were along the shore...

 Cue the jaws theme here, I was zoomed in, obviously too much and almost missed him!

He finally stopped after 5 or 10 minutes and headed on down the beach.

I bet he wasn't 15 feet away, it was so awesome!

Here are the few shells I did pick up.

(Top left) Pear whelks, Olive

I always have to grab a few Kitten's Paws!

(Middle left) Juvenile fighting conchs, no 2 alike!
(Bottom) Apple Murex and of course more beautiful scallops

I had a wonderful time as usual, and it always ends much too quickly! I'm flying/driving to my Daughter's tomorrow to spend some time with her and my Grandson Joseph for a week. More fun for this Gammaw!! :)

Stay tuned, I'm hope to be a better blogger and post updates more regularly!

::Shelllady Hugs::

Catching Up!

First, let me show you the horse conch before cleaning and after...

Before

After 

It has a hole in it, but it still has good color, so it is proudly displayed on our front porch!

The shelling the last couple of days (Thursday & Friday) has not been very good, but the weather and the beaches have been awesome!

I ran across 3 more turtle crawls, these appeared to be successful!

 

                              
I think this is so awesome, would love to be a 'turtle' person one day, and follow them!
The shelling at Sanibel wasn't so great so I decided to try Bowditch Beach, which is the far west end of Ft. Myers Beach. It was a nice park, with all the amenities....

...and it was beautiful, with very clear water...

...but there were no shells to found here either, and it is VERY touristy!

I got up on Friday, back to my favorite beach at Sanibel (Gulfside City Park). Still beautiful, but no shells on this day either!

I did spy a live sea star...

..and a slow moving dolphin...

...so I left and went to Blind Pass to give it a go. It too was beautiful, and there were LOTS of people snorkeling.

...and there I saw 2 manatees!

But alas, I left there with a nearly empty shell bag.

Saturday I went back to Sanibel, and it was a MUCH better shelling day!

I did find an Alphabet cone, but still not worth checking it off my list, it was a perfect size, but the color was sadly lacking....I did keep it anyway! :)

I can always find beautiful Scallops & Cockles...

and the apple murex (top) and juvenile fighting conchs made an appearance...

found a mini very dark calico clam, kittens paws and a pretty jewel box...

 I also found this Green Mussel shell, it was the largest I had ever found and it was in perfect shape! I love the 'mother of pearl' interior of these shells!

...and last but not least, a small very lightly colored Florida cone...

So I only have one more day of shelling, I will be back out to Sanibel at morning light tomorrow, hopefully I will find something really awesome, if not, I know it will still be a perfect day here in paradise! Stay tuned!!

::Shelllady Hugs::

Just a Morning Walk!

I got to the beach this morning at Sunrise....and the Gulf was very rough!

 Pictures never do it justice, believe me, it was very windy and quite rough, there was even seafoam!

 It's difficult to tell, but apparently the rough water went on all night and created quite a shelf on the beach.

 I knew right away that this wasn't going to be a shelling day, but a looking around and just enjoying the beach day.  So I did just that, making up for yesterday, I just looked at all that I could see, and had a nice LONG walk!

I saw two ''false" crawls. (Turtles came out of the gulf, and turned around and went back without laying eggs.) I watched the 'turtle cart' ladies come and check it out to verify that there wasn't a nest.

Lots of Snowy Plover running around, feeding in the surf....very difficult to catch them with the camera, they are so tiny and move soooo fast!

I even sat down and just stared out into the Gulf for a few minutes....just taking it all in!

I did bring along a ziplock to collect random scoops of mini shells from various shell piles, guess you could call them 'craft shells!

I couldn't resist!! :)

I hope you enjoyed YOUR day today....stay tuned!

::Shelllady Hugs::