Road Trip!!

Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone. ~Unknown

Here are the pics of yesterday's finds, like I said before, there is not much here, except for Brad's Scotch Bonnet and Alphabet Cone.

Here is Brad's 'Loot'...

Jess and my pickin's were pretty slim!

Jess

My finds

Jess' ALMOST Scotch Bonnet

My Almost Scotch Bonnet

My Lion's Paw piece

This will be a long post, but I want to make sure I show pics and give details so you can try to go here, I believe it is a good trip!!

We decided to head down south today, go to Barefoot Beach (circled in red) and work our way back up towards Ft. Myers and see what we would find. Here is a map so you can see where we are talking about....notice I put an X where Bunche Beach is. (From my previous posts) You need to click on it to get a larger pic.

Our journey started on the turquoise bridge leading into Ft. Myers Beach, if you are at the lighthouse beach and look towards Ft. Myers beach, you can see the bridge on a clear day...

 The trip down is really interesting, and there is lots to see! The most surprising part for us is that the road to Barefoot Beach starts in a gated neighborhood of huge mansions! You drive on a brick road along manicured yards, palm trees and these amazing houses!

 You continue through the area until finally you see the brick road come to an end and you get to a state park setting, just around this turn, you arrive at a small building where you have to pay $8 to enter.

There are signs everywhere about Gopher tortoises! It apparently has a high population of them, Low and behold there was one right there beside the road to greet us!

At RC's suggestion, we went as far as we could to the last parking lot, and walked out to the beach and down to Wiggins pass. It reminds me very much of Cayo Costa with trees along the edge of the pass.

We found a shell tree, I had heard that it is tradition in Florida to find a shell, make a wish and hang it on the shell tree for good luck. We all did exactly that!

The shelling here was very thin as it has been on Sanibel this week, but I spotted this piece of coral, it was embedded in the sand so Brad worked to dig it out for me!

How awesome is this?? Bless his heart, he lugged it all the way back to the car for me! I can't wait to clean it up and put it on our porch! I put Hubby's flip flop there for you to see the size...

Here is the Gulf side of the pass

...this is just inside the pass...so different and very peaceful!

We combed the beach, floated around a bit, and did a little exploring.

 This Snowy Egret, kept his eye on us the whole time....

We decided to try following the nature trail back to the car, it was shaded and seemed like more of a direct shot and hopefully would be cooler...it was over a mile back this way, so we felt like the beach was further!

Back at the parking lot.

When we started out, we planned on going to Barefoot, then stopping on the way back at Lover's Key, then somewhere on Ft. Myers Beach/Estero, and ending at Bowditch point, (just across from Bunche).  It was a beautiful day, but very hot, and it was a long, long walk from the parking area to Wiggins Pass which was recommended by my blogging buddy RC. So we just went to Barefoot ate some lunch and came back home. We were very hot and tired, and a little bit discouraged because of the poor shelling! That's okay, there is always tomorrow...right??

Stay tuned...

::Hugs::

Cheri

Feeling Determined!

Avid shellers know that, some days, they’ll come away with nothing but a lesson in patience and perseverance.  Other days, their faith will be rewarded with more than they ever hoped for. ~ Unknown

First, let me show you pics of our finds from the last two nights at Bunche Beach. It wasn't a huge amount, but we did find some nice Kings Crowns.  Notice that they are all about the same size! Kind of unusual I would think.

Here are all of our finds....

Jess winds the grand prize for the last 2 nights with a grand total of 7 Kings Crowns!!

Brad came in second with 3, check out those spines on that first one!!

I brought up the rear with one and a tiny!

I need to get some muratic acid to really bring out the beauty in these guys, so will have to post pics of the final products later on!

Today we finally completed all of our obligations, AC people came and fixed the AC, and we had to hang out at the house because we were expecting some new furniture to be delivered.  Finally Hubby can get out of the house!! :)  We decided to go to Sanibel Fish house for an early dinner, then head out to Gulfside park for some shelling....The food was wonderful, as usual, but that cannot be said for the shelling!  Very quickly we could see that there was not a lot out there! I couldn't even find a scallop worth keeping!!  Brad loves to dig, so he tried hitting the shallows and digging...with very little luck.

It just appeared to be a dreary day with a very empty beach!

While we were at dinner Jess saw a post from Pam of iloveshelling.com saying that shells seemed to be coming in at Blind Pass, at the time they were just kittens paws but we decided it was worth a try!  None of us have had much luck at Blind Pass before, and don't go very often, but Brad had mentioned he would like to go....so we did! 

When we got there, the first thing Brad did was climb down the rocks on the Captiva side to the water below...he just wanted to dig!  In just a few seconds he came up with a SCOTCH BONNET!! 

That was enough for us! I hesitated because I am somewhat challenged with climbing so I took my time, first Jess made her way down there, then Hubby!! He rarely gets into the water!!

Jess found a scotch bonnet piece and I found a piece of a Lions Paw! My first!!  Unfortunately that was about it, there were millions of kittens paws, and turbans, but little else.  Hubby came out before too long and Jess and I followed him pretty quickly....but Brad stuck with it!!

We hadn't even notice the sign until we got out!! ..OOPS!

The other sign says "No swimming, Dangerous current"! But it was only thigh deep or so so other than bouncing around some while digging, it wasn't bad. But was not very plentiful.... except for a Scotch Bonnet for Brad...which is awesome!! He had just mentioned this morning that he would like to find one someday!! Today was his day! I will post pics tomorrow after they are cleaned up!!

Tomorrow, another adventure...stay tuned!!

::Hugs::

Cheri

Live Bunche Beach Day 2

"Life is life’s greatest gift. Guard the life of another creature as you would your own because it is your own. On life’s scale of values, the smallest is no less precious to the creature who owns it than the largest."~ Lloyd Biggle Jr., Writer

We picked up Brad at the airport today, and came home for some lunch before deciding on a plan for today's adventures.  We have had some issues with the AC in our house, and it is barely working so Hubby has kind of been 'stuck' at the house to meet the AC person, unfortunately this will continue tomorrow.  He is not a fan of the mud flats, so Jess, Brad and I decided to head back to Bunche Beach. We had to wait for thunderstorms to pass thru and mother nature was nice enough to keep us on schedule!  We were back out about 6:45, after dinner. Brad has never been to Bunche Beach, and it did not disappoint!

To help you all see our location at Bunche Beach, I took some pictures from the beach toward Sanibel. This is directly across the bay, see Sanibel light? I caught it lit so you could see it better.

Just to the right is the bridge and Causeway to Sanibel.

The flats were still amazing with wildlife of every shape and size....

 Another tiny marginella made his way happily along Jess' hand....

 ...and so many live Kings Crowns! Look at those spines....just makes your feet hurt to see them!! We try very hard to be careful not to step on anything as many bury themselves in the mud just below the surface!

This is one of Jess' favorite, a Pear Whelk, obviously alive and kicking!!

I found this amazing tiny sand dollar, unfortunately he didn't make it home without breaking...they are so fragile!! :(

Brad found this tiny live shrimp, and Jess put it in a Quarhog shell for an artsy photo shoot!

Brad also found this awesome Millipede Star fish, very much alive!!

Check out this video of the Millipede, you might want to make it full screen to see all of his 'toes'!

The Kings crowns were not only live with their original "snail-like' owners, there were as many full with hermit crabs also!!

We were lucky enough to find some 'empties', I will post pics later of our finds!

There were also so many horseshoe crabs! From great big to teeny-tiny, this is obviously a favorite playground for these guys and their families!

We all were especially fascinated by this one who was 'molting'! He had a very soft skin inside with the smaller shell on top and bottom! Just amazing!

Check out the size of this guy's footprints, they are as big as mine!

Jess took this neat pic, she has always been good at taking very creative and 'atsy' pics!! (If you click any of these pics, they will automatically enlarge to see them better!)

You ALWAYS have to pause for just a little while to watch a beautiful Sanibel Sunset!

I think Jess is happy that Brad came to be with her for a few days! 

Another Beautiful days end in paradise!

Stay tuned!

::Hugs::

Cheri