Fist size Alphabet cone

Very Large Alphabet Cone

Holy Spelling Bee, Batman! This is the largest ALPHABET CONE I’ve ever seen come off the beach. It’s so big….I’m sure this one has the whole alphabet….. twice …on this beauty (heehee).

Large alphabet cone shell

Eileen’s Alphabet cone

I met Eileen and Rob coming off the beach on Sanibel’s side of Blind Pass (Turner Beach) and Eileen told me she found this humongo ALPHABET out in the water where the beach is forming a little sand tip (I’ll show you a picture of where in a minute) early this morning. As you can see in the first picture, it has some gunk still on it but I think this baby will clean up easily with a little tooth brush action using a little bleach and water. If they send pictures after its cleaned up (my fingers are crossed), I’ll share them with you as well.

Eileen and Rob are Shellers from PA

Eileen and Rob (PA)

Eileen and Rob have a Sanibel shelling trip planned for March but Rob told me he couldn’t wait another month since Eileen has been watching the happenings on the beaches and talking about my blog every day (really, he said that ! ;) …blush… blush.. I’m so flattered!) so he booked another trip this month to give to Eileen for Valentine’s Day. Awwww. What a Valentine! And then to find this awesome shell… wow… doesn’t get much better than that.

Collecting seashells

Collecting seashells on the “tip” of Sanibel’s Blind Pass

This is where Eileen found her ALPHABET CONE. I took this photo from the Sanibel side looking towards Captiva. You can see a tiny piece of the jetty of Captiva on furthest right side of the horizon. While I was there I met some other shelling sisters!

Ann with scents

Ann (Minnesota)

Ann was so sweet to run back to her car after we met to bring me some of her handmade aromatherapy “melts”. Thank you, Ann, they smell sooo good! Here are her seashell finds and while you check out her shells, check out her nails too..nice….

Ann's handful of shells

Ann’s handful of shells

Another shelling sister having a great time working the surf  in the shallow tip.

Sheller Teresa Tennessee

Teresa (Tennessee)

Then two more joined us so I  took a photo of the whole gang. They all hang out with us on iLoveShelling- What a fun morning!

Shellers at BP Sanibel

Mary, Debbie, Teresa and Ann

I think I did more socializing than shelling (shellers are so darn nice!) on the Sanibel side so I didn’t get many shell photos but I did get some shots from the Captiva side… where I started my day. I didn’t find anything exceptional like Eileen, but I enjoyed what I found.

Kitten's Paws

Kitten’s Paws everywhere!

Giant Bittersweet

I found several Bittersweets

Calico Clam

Lots of Calico Clams

All of these shells were found on the left side of the jetty on Captiva. The long sand bar that we saw last month is gone but there is a smaller sand bar that has formed at the end of the jetty. I didn’t find all of these shells together in the photo below but I did find them all within 10 minutes.

Shells on Captiva beach

Murex, conchs, an olive and a bittersweet

In the photo below, this is what the other side of the jetty looked like today. This is where I filmed the Sit N Sifters last week. Can you believe it? Now….. zip, zilch, zero shells.

Fisherman on Captiva

No shells, only a fisherman

So many of you are keeping up with the changes at Blind Pass.. so I took another short video this time from the Blind Pass bridge. When I pan over to the left side (the Sanibel side), I zoomed to the furthest sand tip where Eileen found her cone and where I met all of my new shelling sisters. I actually took this before I met them all but seeing alot of shelling going on out there, I knew it was a hot spot.

If you want a little more info on the history of the Blind Pass dredging, read this article To Dredge or Not To Dredge