Our shelling day cruising to the island of Cayo Costa started off with a totally fun surprise after meeting my new favorite sheller Ethan. He brought me a beautiful box of shells that he and his mom Tiffany picked up from their beach in San Diego. How sweet! With his grandmom Daira, they had 3 generations of shellers on the cruise with us…
I was tickled to see Denise again after meeting her last year during an amazing experience of being interviewed for The New York Times. Denise, Clark and I were all quoted in a story about shelling and Sanibel (CLICK HERE for the story). It is a day we’ll never forget! This time I got to meet her husband Paul as well…
Oh how I looove my Shelling Sistahs! And they are another 3 generations of shellers too! Maria, Morgan and Tricia from Ohio are waaaay adorable.
We were all very antsy to get going on our adventure!
The cruise over to the island gave us all time to chat, laugh and meet each other. I loved meeting Bubbie, Paula and Stephanie from Ohio who enjoyed every second of the boat ride. They brought a bag of shell with them to share with the rest of the group. Paula said ” Each day on vacation, we go through our shells at night and only keep the best ones. The next day we either give away or take back the shells to the beach that don’t make the cut.” Clark and I do the same thing so I loved that they felt the same way.
Lynn, Kim and Stacy from Kentucky enjoyed looking through that bag of shells that Bubbie, Paula and Stephanie brought. They found a few shared treasures like a tip-less olive shell perfect for a Shell String bracelet. Shellers are so thoughtful!
Another 3 generations of shellers! It was so good to see the Shell Raisers again! I met this awesome family of Shell Raisers Amelia, Chris, Ava, Cheryl, Sarah and Eric last year and love their passion and fun they all have shelling together.
We pulled up to the beach and…. Oh boy… then it happened. The weather turned. The sky started to turn black in the distance and the boat captains said the radar wasn’t looking good… we had to turn around and go back. Oh No! We could almost hear those shells calling our names! Knowing that they wanted to keep us safe and sound to shell another day… we pulled away from the beach as we all showed our best pouty faces… (heehee)
More cutie pouty faces… LOL
Then Chris smiled and said “Well, We’ll all live to shell another day”. Yep. We shellers have learned … There is no crying in Shelling! We all understood and after getting back to the dock, we made other plans. Just like that. Let’s move on and not dwell on it. I think having a good attitude paid off… The sky cleared! Paula had mentioned she found a few good shells at Blind Pass Captiva the night before… so lots of us ended up heading to Blind Pass.
We found shells!
Louie and Dee from Illinois headed there straight from the cruise and found BANDED TULIPS, SHARKS EYES, OLIVES, WHELKS and other goodies to fill their shell bags.
Dee was especially fond of her LIGHTNING WHELK and huuuuge OYSTER SHELL.
This is just another reason why i Love Shelling… the true spirit of loving life lives inside a sheller’s heart. Shelling brings us together just like this…
Join us on an iLoveShelling Shell Adventure! CLICK HERE for dates and info.
Kim, Stacy and I went there too! We were on the other side of the jetty :)
So nice to meet you Lynn! Were there shells on the other side too?
Yes!! Kim found a Banded Tulip!
I had wanted to go on this cruise as I sooo enjoyed last month’s cruise, but was unable to get the time off of work. When the Shell Raisers posted that you had to turn around due to weather, I felt a little better about missing it. After reading this post, I’m sorry I missed it all over again. Pam, you do a brilliant job of sharing your experiences and those of the great people you meet every day! I look forward to your posts all the time!! Thanks for doing what you do. ;-)
I love the Shell Raisers shirts! would love one with that logo! any chance of tracking it down? Can’t wait…we’ll be on Sanibel on the 30th of July and have never gone to Cayo Costa…sounds great!
It always seems like a great time! No pouty faces allowed! lol…
Can’t wait for my next Cayo Costa trip!
Pam,
So enjoyed seeing you again….wish we could have shelled Cayo Costa but did find some nice things at the jetty….and got a cone from a friend, thanks! Will be planning to do the cruise with you again next July! Hope to see you on the beach before i leave at the end of the month!
Wonderful!
Such lovely box of goodies from Ca, How sweet!
Chablis and I each made one of your olive shell bracelets last night. I’ve been looking at mine all day and dreaming of Sanibel.
Glad to see Blind Pass provided rainy day treasures. I was watching the clouds and radar up to the last minute trying to decide if the weather would hold out….
Disappointing for the visitors that missed out on a great adventure, Pam, I have to admit I was just a tiny bit glad to se that my dcision to not drive over from FMB was the right one for this particular day.
I’m hooked on your blog! Love it! I have a dumb (?) question about low tides. The times posted on the tide charts – is that the ‘peak’ of low tide and then it starts coming back in? Or is that when it just starts to go out? Is that the best time to go shelling or should you go an hour or two before the time posted or after? I live near St. Pete and have a fave area I like to go where there are rocks in the water and find good shells around the rocks sometimes, but you have to go at low tide. I’ve gotten lucky a few times, but mostly I never seem to arrive at quite the right time, tho! Maybe others are wondering about this too? Please say I’m not the only dummy out there! I hope to get back to Sanibel soon! Til then, thanks for feeding my hunger pangs!
The time of a low tide that you see listed in a tide table is the time of the lowest point which that particular tide reaches. You will want to start shelling maybe about an hour before that, and keep going until maybe an hour afterwards as the tide is coming in. Something like that.
Remember also that there are two low tides on most days, and often one is lower than the other.
Pam – what a joy to meet you. We hope your procedure went well & you rest & heal well! Much love! The buckeye gang
PROCEDURE….REST……HEAL….. These are words that I don’t like to see in a posting. I don’t know any details about this comment but would ike to say TAKE CARE from whatever you are going through. I hope the time it takes you to heal is a speedy one. Pam please know my thoughts and prayers are with you. L-o-r-e-e
That goes for me too, Pam, I hope you are OK!!
L-O-R-E-E, you are sweet, honey. I’m fine. I’m just doing a little skin treatment for a little sun damage. I just wrote about it on a post (http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/2013/07/20/beach-day-essentials-to-fun-videos-by-you/) because I’ll b out of the sun and off the beach for a few weeks. I get tickled every time u spell out your name. It was so funny when it all clicked in when’s spelled it out at Cayo. An aha moment! And thank you too Donna R!! Xo
What a nice story with a happy ending!