 Santa brought seashells for Christmas on Captiva!
Blind Pass Captiva was still producing shells yesterday which always makes me happy because when the shells arrive, so do lots of shelling friends too. I met iLoveShelling Facebook friend Mike Ryan (Fort Myers) for the first time.
He found this perfect SEA WHIP with an ATLANTIC WING OYSTER and a ONE-TOOTH SIMNIAattached. Nice find Mike!
Connor, Natalie and Jim (aka Elvis!) from Virginia found Santa’s seashells stash!
They collected lots of the Sanibel Six but these were their faves…. lots of GIANT BITTERSWEETS, part of a JUNONIA, CONES, CANDY (HORSE CONCH), a FLAT SCALLOP, a CALICO SCALLOP and a WORMIE!
I introduced you to some of these girls on Friday, but I didn’t realize they were all together. They met in Sanibel while shelling 7 years ago and they have gotten together every year since to shell together. Isn’t that fabulous??? Shelling Sisters forever… Joan (TN), Dawn (NJ), Glenda (England) and Bonnie (NJ)….
It was nice to see another lucky family shellebrating the holidays on the beach collecting seashells- Travis, Jill, Keith and Aden (MI). Good to see you again, Jill!
Clark and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and send lots of warm Florida sunshine and shells. Will cyber shelling warm you up, (Parker)??? Find all the shells you want by clicking on the next photo to enlarge…
Merry Christmas!
Pam , hmmmm , I wonder if that is the botton part to the top of the junonia you found the other day ? You go virginia shell crew & everyone else lucky enough be on Sanibel for this Christmas season !!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR, Pam and Clark! Have a great holiday season. That goes for all our shelling friends as well! Love to all.
We’re working on celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary on Sanibel during Spring Break! Cross your fingers…I’m currently scouting places to stay and airfares. Yipee!!!! Sanibel at last! (any suggestions would be appreciated).
Hi Christine,
I was in Sanibel Dec 6-17 and stayed at Mitchells Sandcastles. They are on West Gulf Drive and Beach Access #4 runs through their properties (they have 2). I found lots of shells and they had shells piles as well. It’s a fantastic place to stay (we had #7), close to the beach, centrally located on Sanibel. It’s a cottage type set up, no motel or condos and you have your own kitchen. This was my second stay there and I will always return there if I can get back to Sanibel. I did get attacked by the the no-see ums that are in Florida. The bug spray I bought didn’t work. They say to use Avon Skin So Soft. I have only been there in December though, so not sure what they are like during Spring Break. December had lots of low tides and I found loads of minis walking just North of there. I actually stood in the surf in one place for over an hour just picking them up rolling in!. Walking South, I found a Crown Conch in the high tide line that seemed to go unnoticed! I also went to Blind Pass quite a bit and found most of my shells there under the bridge on the Sanibel side. As the waves came in, it would wash away the sand that was built up and there were tons of Olives and other shells that would loosen up. I was always up early to get out there (low tides were early then) and always came home with treasures. No whole junonia, but I did find a good specimen of one. Also check out the Bailey Shell Museum. It was interesting to watch the movies (~1 hour total) and see their displays. They have some record size specimens there that are “wow”. Good luck on deciding where to stay and Merry Christmas and Happy Anniversary to you.
Oops one other thing. If you like birds, Jerry’s Supermarket has a few of them in the courtyard that will say hello! And then if you want to see more beautiful ones, head over to Periwinkle Park. There have quite a few of them with one of them will tell you “whatca got there”. “Fred” is a woman lover, and there is another one that loves men because his original owner was male. Libbey is the bird handler during the winter and we were very fortunate to catch her when she came in to see the birds. She usually puts on a show on Sundays. There is also a large pond with many varieties of birds and some lemurs in an enclosure.
Thanks for the suggestion of a place to stay! Never left the beach long enough to find the birds…will have to do that next visit!
Christine, I stay at Mitchell’s too and love it there. We will be back in February. I have always had good luck with shelling on the beaches right there.
A note regarding Periwinkle Park and the buirds. Libby has a show every morning at 10am where she takes the birds out of the cages and lets people hold them. I believe it is 7 days a week. Try not to miss it, it is really neat to see. Good luck and I hope you make it.
I always love cyber shelling…hope to be ON the beach tomorrow! Merry Christmas to you and your sweet family! You give us all so much JOY with your beautiful blog! Holiday hugs, Diane
Merry christmas everyone!
Merry Christmas to me!! Cyber shelling in PA when I long to be on the beach in Sanibel……thank you Pam! I blow up every photo and scanned them for treasure. Your site is the next best thing to being there!
Zowie Pam, you found three good-sized Junonia pieces, a big old piece of Lion’s Paw, a great fistful of cones and so many other fine goodies!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.
I hope you got my card Donna, if not, then it will be there in a day or two.
Pam, I love the shell tree with the Santa hat!
I spent most of today and yesterday going through my micros and starting to ID some more of them. All kinds of stuff I have! :)
Wow! Merry Christmas to all those on Sanibel! ! :) It’s already Christmas over here. :) and beautiful shells! Love that huge shell mound that you can sieve through! Enjoy yourselves! Pam! Just last Sunday I went shelling and to my pleasant surprise, I found a few shells that look exactly like those bittersweets! :D was ecstatic when I saw them! :D perhaps that’s Santa’s early Christmas gift to me. :) will tag some of those on facebook for you to see! They really resemble the bittersweets! :)
Hi Joash, and a Merry Christmas to you in Singapore!
I guess there are various kinds of bittersweets almost everywhere in the world. They have them in England too although perhaps not as pretty as these! And there are really beautiful huge ones in west Mexico. :)
But maybe Santa picked up a few on Sanibel and carried them over to Singapore for you???
Hey Susan! So sorry for the late reply! Actually, I collected those from kuta beach in Bali. It isn’t areally impressive beach but it has these “bittersweets”. Anyway, they have bittersweets in England and Mexico?! I’ve never been to these place before and in fact, this was probably my first time finding shells so similar to those in Sanibel! Haha! Hope you have a wonderful new year! :)
Bali, huh? Sounds great even if there weren’t so many shells!
I bet in time you will end up finding a few more kinds of shells that look rather like the Sanibel shells, like maybe, a keyhole limpet, a small mussel, some lucines and so on… Happy New Year 2013 to you too Joash! :)
Merry Christmas to Pam, Clark and everyone else. Love the shells. What is in the lower left corner? I hope I find some of those giant bitttersweets!
Pat
That shell in the lower left hand corner is a worn thorny oyster I believe?
Those bittersweets are so cute!
Wishing you & yours a very Merry Christmas. Love Mike’s shelling elf outfit. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to shell Blind Pass for all to see and hear!
pam great shells of the Sanibel Six can they beny conch Tulip Cone whelk Olive and Murex? I’m doing shadow boxes of them for my grandson and I from our visit in november
Yes, you got it right Brenda, it’s conch, tulip, cone, whelk, olive, murex:
http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/2011/04/08/sanibel-six-seashells/
I guess i was asking can the tulip be a banded one the cone an alphabet and the olive a lettered and the murex an apple Those are the ones I have. My gandson has dusty cone and a small florida cone so they are the choices I have for his shadow box he also found a small horse conch
Hi agan Brenda, Yes, I think Pam’s “Sanibel Six” can include any conch, any tulip, any cone, any whelk, any olive and any murex.
So, it can be either the fighting conch or the horse conch, either the banded tulip or the true tulip, any one of the three cones, either the lightning whelk or the pear whelk, an olive, and any one of the murex species.
Come to think of it, I could make great little miniature versions with the tiny juveniles I found… :)
But I couldn’t do the same thing on the Caribbean islands where I go, because there are no whelks there, at least none of the big species anyway.
Brenda, Yes! Susan H has it right.. any whelk, any conch, any murex. These six shells are what I have found to be the most popular/favorite shells to collect on Sanibel after looking into many many shell bags and buckets over the years. So I guess the primo Sanibel Six would include the alphabet cone so if I had a choice to frame the Sanibel Six, I would use the alphie for sure! ;). Look at this post to explain the Sanibel Six… http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/2011/04/08/sanibel-six-seashells/
Merry Christmas Clark and Pam…soak up some SUNSHINE for Bob and me…Johnnie
Dear Pam,
We will be making our annual trip to Sanibel next week to celebrate the New Year with friends. We all are huge fans of your blog and hope to run into you on the beach while we are there. Andi and Sue ( the serious shellers of the group).
Merry Christmas!
One of the coolest micros I found on Sanibel this visit I managed to identify yesterday. It does not have a common name, and apparently it’s an uncommon item. I found only found one, but it was in perfect condition, and really it’s a spectacular shell under magnification. IRL it’s only about 11 or 12 mm in length (not as big as half an inch). Take a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristichia_toreta
and here:
http://shellmuseum.org/shells/shelldetails.cfm?id=135
And more info (no picture) here:
http://www.malacolog.org/search.php?nameid=7506
I should explain that this species is in a family we call the pyrams. Pyrams are mostly micromollusks, and they live on other creatures.
We don’t like the no-see-ums because they bite us and take a little bit of blood from us, but some lovely shelled mollusks live using the same method: the wentletraps, the nutmegs and the pyrams! :)
Merry Christmas Pam and Clark. Thank you for all the posts! Love to cyber shell with all the other readers :) One other thing, is it possible to post your other pictures so when I click on them they are a little larger? Getting older has it’s drawbacks to see the details :(
Merry Christmas from Texas, thank you for all the pictures, you made my Christmas morning!
HOHOHO BY GOLLY AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS PAM AND CLARK. I WOULD LIKE TO SEND YOU A VERY MERRY SHELLABRATION AT THIS SPECIAL TIME OF YEAR. YOU BRING SO MUCH TO ALL OF US WHO CAN’T ALWAYS BE IN PARADISE SHELLING. THE PICTURES, VIDEOS, AND SPECIAL STORIES JUST MAKE MY DAY. IT WAS FUN MEETING YOU PAM ON THE BEACH THIS YEAR. MY FRIENDS WERE LAUGHING ABOUT MY MARGARITA SHELLING BUCKET IN THE PICTURE YOU TOOK. HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR AND HOPE TO SEE YOU OUT AND ABOUT SHELLING NEXT YEAR!
HOHOHO BY GOLLY AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS PAM AND CLARK. I WOULD LIKE TO SEND YOU A VERY MERRY SHELLABRATION AT THIS SPECIAL TIME OF YEAR. YOU BRING SO MUCH TO ALL OF US WHO CAN’T ALWAYS BE IN PARADISE SHELLING. THE PICTURES, VIDEOS, AND SPECIAL STORIES JUST MAKE MY DAY. IT WAS FUN MEETING YOU PAM ON THE BEACH THIS YEAR. MY FRIENDS WERE LAUGHING ABOUT MY MARGARITA SHELLING BUCKET IN THE PICTURE YOU TOOK. HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR AND HOPE TO SEE YOU OUT AND ABOUT SHELLING IN THE NEW YEAR!
Merry Christmas to Shelling lovers everywhere! Pam-Thanks for giving to all of us the lovely gifts from the sea all year long! Leaving Illinois for Destin for a week on Thursday. I love the Ocean there but no real shelling. I’ll have to wait for Spring Break for that!
Merry Christmas to All.
Great pictures. Wonderful finds!!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all the shelling friends we meet each day on Pam’s wonderful site.
As I’ve said before PAM ‘YOU MAKE MY DAY”
JANET IN AZ
Listerine- original- watered down- put in a spray bottle- works good to ease No- seums. Easy to travel with. We had a blizzard here in North Texas today. I looked through my shell collection while the snow fell outside. Happy shelling!
Hey Carol A, about that diluted Listerine, do you mean it is good to keep them from biting, or to treat the bites once you have already been bitten?
Listerine is also effective in keeping mosquitos away from outdoor parties. Spray the area down with diluted listerine and it will keep Mosquitos at bay. Merry Christmas everyone. May God bless you all during the holidays and all year long.
Great to see you too Pam! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Happy 2013!
Jill
Happy Holidays to Pam, Clark and all the shellers out there. Here’s wishing everyone a safe, happy 2013 and wonderful shelling finds. From Katherine in cold eastern PA.
Wow!! Nice finds!!
Hey Pam, I went through last year’s finds and found my other valve of the speckled tellin from Sanibel. It is a juvenile although larger (not quite an inch and a half) and a bit nicer than the one I found during this year’s visit, but it does have a drilled hole from a moon snail in it, right in the middle! For those of us who don’t know the species, here is the image on the BMSM website:
http://shellmuseum.org/shells/shelldetails.cfm?id=243
I can send you an image of the 2011 one if you like.
Has anyone else found one of these? When they are juvenile they are much skinnier than the shell shown in the link. They are very pretty at any age. :)
Hi Susan
I found one in January 2002. It is also about an inch and a half and skinnier than the picture. I haven’t found any since then. They are very pretty. I’ve been to Bowmans Beach a few times but never to Blind Pass. Hope to get there this coming January. Have a Happy New Year everyone. Pat
Yes the speckled tellins are very pretty aren’t they!
Me too I have never been to Blind Pass, only to West Gulf Drive, Gulfside City Park and once to the Lighthouse.
Please do tell us how you get on next month! :)
Last January we stayed at Ocean’s Reach which is right next door to Gulfside City Park. We’re going back again next year. They have an osprey nest on the premises and 2 eggs hatched while we were there. I didn’t find a lot of shells out front, so I usually walked toward West Gulf Road where there were shallow areas of water. The fighting conchs liked to hang aroun there and I was also able to find some Wentletraps. I only went once to the Lighthouse, because I didn’t find much the first time. I only found Pam’s web site this past August, so now I know that Mother Nature likes to play tricks with us shellers. I’ll left you know if I find anything interesting or maybe Pam will find me! Pat
You are quite right Pat, that Mother Nature loves to plays tricks with her shells.
Shellers just never really know from one day to the next what we will find where! It’s constantly changing! As Pam has showed us, it can change radically in just a few hours during one day!
There are a few constants: low tide is usually the best, the lower the better; and storms usually do throw up more shells a day or two afterwards, but as for where those shells appear, that’s always a guess. :)
Hope you and Clark had a Merry Christmas and the rest of the ShellNation. Richard received a new shelling tool, the one that looks like a golf club, and I think he’s ready to go shelling again. I know it’s crazy but I love those scallop flats, I only have 2 small whole ones. Of course a nice alphabet cone would be nice. I’m already making a shell-bucket list for next Nov.
That’s a really dark alphabet cone. Do you find those very often?
Mroeder, There is a layer of periostricum (the skin) still on that alphie thats why it looks so dark. I didn’t have a chance to clean it up before i took the photo but I was so excited to find it because it was perfect… no nicks on the lip, beautiful color and the tip wasn’t broken. So no, it isn’t very often we find them in perfect shape like that with the periostricum- i was just really lucky!
Can anyone explain to me how to get to blind pass that you are all talking about, from the causway over to Sanibel Island……….
Please,
hi denise, take a look at the maps I’ve provided on the tab on top of any blog page called “parking” to find Blind Pass.. http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/parking/
Denise, Blind Pass is the absolute opposite tip of the island, where it meets the island of Captiva. You just drive as far as you possibly can on the main road (which turns from Periwinkle Way to the Sanibel-Captiva Road) and it will take you there.
Pam,
Loved the video! When you see the top of the Junonia and leap down into the surf to grab it! That is the excitement I feel too shelling in Sanibel. I found a huge true tulip last year under the bridge at Blind Pass and nearly fainted. It was just sitting there all by itself empty and caught in a hole in the sand. Can’t wait to get down there this year. My husband and I spend a week there each Feb to shellabrate our anniversary! He has gotten the shelling bug too and joins me in pre dawn shelling hunts.