This is just a drop in the shell bucket of what I saw yesterday at Blind Pass Captiva… Turner Beach.
Holy Cowrie!
What a beautiful sight..
An extremely large shell pile to pick through.
collecting seashells on shell beach Sanibel Captiva Florida
My favorite finds of the day? Alex and a JUNONIA cob!
A few hours later I couldnt help but feel curious about what Sanibel’s Lighthouse Beach looked like. This nice little storm brought in a beautiful wrack line all the way around the tip and as far as my eye could see. Shell heaven!
WOWZA! Wish I was there!
It is heaven. We were lucky to be visiting Sanibel when the storm hit. It really paid off. More shells that I have ever imagined. Hate that I didn’t see you.
What’s the best way to clean Olives and Fighting Conchs (smelly) without ruining their shine?!
What’s the best way to clean smelly Olives and Fighting Conchs without ruining their shine?
Soak them in a light bleach water
It can sometimes be impossible to completely get rid of the leftover tissue that is causing the smell in smelly shells like these.
You could try boiling them (outdoors if possible because of the smell) and hope that would loosen the remaining dead parts so that they would fall out. If you do that let the shells cool down slowly.
You could also try soaking them in strong alcohol for a month and then drying them out, hoping that would “cure” the tissues enough to make the small less objectionable.
You could also try posing them somewhere with the opening up, and carefully adding bleach to the inside for a week or so.
Of, if you were in the tropics, you could try to let the ants eat the remaining tissues.
But none of these methods are guaranteed to work.
I always just throw smelly ones back in the Gulf.
Thank you so much for your input. I live in Maryland and would love to do the bury/ant method, but they may have to wait until Spring. I ruined the shine on some others :-( I will try the boiling method on my outside grill sideburner!
Wow, wish I was there!
Talk about being jealous! WOW WOW WOW
Soooooooo ready for this!
Who whoooo is all I can say!!!! 😀
Wow, can’t wait to get there. Looking forward to our trip the end of February. We’ve noticed the sand bar at Blind Pass. As far as the tide goes, what’s the best timing to walk out there? Loved our I Love Shelling tour last year; unfortunately schedule doesn’t match our time on Sanibel. Happy Shelling!
LOVE your I Love Shelling bucket! Is it available for purchase?
heehee Susan- its just a iLoveShelling sticker on the bucket ;)
I was going to ask the same thing. I know what I am doing with my sticker from the I Love Shelling cruise to Cayo Costa. I am the teacher with the broken foot. That was a fabulous day, thank you Pam.
Hi Pam, Jon and I love shelling too! We winter in Venice, FL. Today we went to Manasota Key to check out what treasures the storm brought us. Whelks, fighting conchs, large cockle shells, crab pots, sunglasses, a toy car and best of all a very large intact Deer Cowrie! It was Jon’s find of a lifetime!!! As you would say Shellzam! 🐚 I wanted to attach a picture for you but I don’t know how to do it on this site.
We’ve been watching the web cams the last few days and wishing we were there. So glad you posted because we knew it would be shell heaven.
Now I’m a believer – was there from Saturday to Tuesday and wham did the storm bring em in!
I would love to be there being able to sift through all the wonderful looking shells. It looks like you guys have plenty of shells to keep you busy for a few days.
Everyone at Sanibel Island have a wonderful time while you are there.
I love shelling – my fave
Will you be putting up more videos for 2018, I miss them?
Totally Shell Heaven!!!! Can’t wait to get to Captiva this week for the holiday!