Southwest Florida beach tour. Let a local show you around a Florida Island and all it's treasures!

Hello beach friends. Is there anything better than enjoying a beautiful sunrise from a boat that is going to take you to an island where you can hunt for beach treasures? Yeah, I didn't think so either. So, I'm going to enjoy this great ride with about 40 of my beach friends. Okay, I didn't actually meet every single person on the boat, but we're all here to spend some time on Kiwen Island. Perhaps some people are just going to relax. Perhaps some are here like me to find beach treasures. What are those treasures going to be? Well, there is only one way to find out, and I'm not particular. I'll enjoy a seashell or a sea creature. And without giving too much away, we are indeed going to experience both of those today. Now, the tide is low, but it is coming in. So, at least the water level will be low enough to see some goodies for a little bit. Oh, that's a heartbreaker. Oh, so that's a horse conchk that's kind of missing its bottom. So, we're just going to keep hunting and see what other kind of treasures might reveal themselves. Again, the tide's coming in, so there not much I can do about that. I don't know how quick I can really be cuz if you go too fast, you're going to miss stuff. Now, here we have an nine arm sea star. Now, they're I think these critters are fantastic. They typically live in water that's a little bit deeper, about 130 ft or so. But look at their little tube legs. Even though it's a sea star, it does not have suckers on those little feet. So, it operates a little bit different than some of the other sea stars that we have down here. It's kind of stiff, which you can kind of see. It's growing a couple of its arms back. Now, these critters are both scavenger and predator. So they'll eat primarily mollisks, small crustaceans, polyat worms, things of that nature. So perhaps this creature kind of helped me along a little bit and some of the seashells that we are going to find today. So yes, we will see a bunch of different seashells as well as a couple sea creatures. And I am happy to report at the end of the video, we will also say hi to dolphins. And I will tell you about my special announcement that I've kind of been alluding to. So, if you're ready to see what all is out there for us today, let's go to the beach. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Okay, head down. Getting to work. We have Okay, a lightning welk. It's kind of missing its very bottom. What about this? We got turkey wing. You're kind of worn down, too. Okay. What about All right. Banded tulip, but you're alive. All right. So, not going to spend too too much time. So, so far kind of striking out. Oh, I see spots. And it's empty. All right. That is what I'm talking about. So, that's an alphabet cone. Very desirable. At least for me, anyway. Anybody hate alphabet cones? Raise your hand. All right. I'm pretty sure everyone's hands stayed right by their sides. The alphabet count is fantastic. I do see an F, a Y. Oh, they're great. A worm snail. That is a Fargo worm snail. We have this one and the rather unruly Florida worm snail, but this is the Fargo worm snail. I'm not a judge on worm snails. I like them all. I collect all of them. Look how pretty. So, this is a slipper snail. I don't normally pay too too much attention to them, but this one happens to be rather exquisite. So, that is a spotted slipper snail. That's cool. Oh. Oh, these are so cool. So, this is a sea cucumber. Now, do not let that name fool you. It is not a plant. This is an animal. It's actually an econom. So, it is related to sea stars and sea urchins. Now, two of the facts that I think are the most amusing with this critter is it breathes through its butt and when it gets afraid, its defense mechanism is violently expelling their internal organs and then the predator will eat their organs and then the animal, this the cucumber will go ahead and regrow those organs over time. I find that to be absolutely fascinating. It is the squishiest feeling critter I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. It's really, really cool. And you are alive. Yep. An abandoned tulip that is alive. So, we're just going to keep hunting, looking for those empty shells. Nope, not empty. Look at the eyeballs. So, on top there, you can see the little eye stocks. That is a fighting conchk. They are fantastic. I absolutely adore the shells and the creatures alike. So, this is Yeah, it's pretty mature. It does have its stromboid notch. So, all the conchs, all the true conchs will have that notch in its shell there. We're just going to leave that creature do its thing. All right, we're going to go see if we can find some of those empty seashells or another creature. That's fine. We'll just see what's out there. Shell. No creature. This is an lettered olive. Yep. Fantastic. There are a couple other different types of olives. This is called lettered because those M's and W's. Somebody thought they look like letters. Oh, garbage. We'll get that off the beach. Oh, another See the eyeballs. So, the stromboid notch. You can see that there is a critter in there. So, I'm just going to leave that. H. Heartbreaker. Moon snail. Big old hole in it. Yeah, kind of a deal breaker for me. And it's fun. I have gone shelling with like artists or people that make other things with their shells and it's really fun to shell with other people who aren't necessarily I kind of look for specimen pieces. So, it's kind of fun to see what other people see when you go out there. So, Oh, I wonder what all these other people are looking for. Alive. Alive. Alive. All right. All of those tulips. Yeah, I have to check a lot of shells. What about you? Yep. Alive. That orange one's real pretty, though. And what do we got? Little piece. Little lightning. Well, core. Oh, no. All right. Well, it's a little bit more than a piece, but was a little bit broken. Oh, here's another shark eye. Disappears intact. Oh, that's wonderful. All right. So, we got a moon snail here. We call these shark eye. Moon snails. Well, it does appear to be a false shark eye, but that's okay. False or true shark eye, you're coming home with me. You're rather, really pretty. All right. And here's a lightning welk. It's pretty intact. It's got a lot of lines on it. The many lines lightning w. Not really. Just some of them. All right. It's just a little bit different. That one happens to have a whole bunch of those lightning marks on it. So that is a little sinestrom fulgar sinstrom or lightning welk. Okay, here's another. Here's at least this one's empty. So this is a fighting conchk. It's juvenile. It's a little bit smaller. It doesn't have its strong notch. Still very lovely. So yep, it's empty. That is really the precursor or the thing that I'm looking for. So Oh, you are Oh, you're breaking my heart is what you're doing. Oh, you are beautiful and you're alive. So, that is a true tulip. So, just kind of tuck you in. I mean, these creatures do live under the sand as well as on the sand. So, it would be quite at home buried, but I'll let it bury itself. I don't want to I don't want to bury it. All right. Another lightning welk. Yeah. And it's empty. Yeah. Pretty cool. Now, they are pretty common, frankly, the the lightning welks. So, again, the scientific name really just alludes to the fact that the opening on the shell is on the left. Oh, there was a repair at some point. So, the animal broke its shell, repaired it. Just interesting the story that some of these shells could tell. Oh, you could actually tell a story cuz you are not empty. So, there is a little critter in there. Hello. All right, we're going to leave you here. You do have a very nice shell. Keep up the good work. Well, isn't this view lovely? You know what? I think it's high time for me to be quiet for a little while and allow you all to enjoy some beach time. Yeah, tide's coming in. That sandbar is going to be going away soon. Oh, you beautiful. All right. A little bit of Yeah, like seashells in there. I probably can rinse that out. Yep. Beautiful fighting conchk. Awesome. Are you alive? Yep. Yeah. I don't know how many empty banded tulips I'm going to have. Okay. Apple murix, also known as the phootus pom. Overall, I have found the apple mir to actually be very common as well between the lightning welk, the apple mir, and the banded tulip. Yeah, that one's broken on top, but yep. So this is the centura hunteria. So you know it just occurred to me that the three All right, that's a horse conchk. The three very common shells are the three that I first picked to learn the scientific names. Now we can see what it's there's not a lot here. Like I'd hopefully like kind of get down maybe see one or two tiny shells, but I'm really just looking at Yeah, that's a piece of a tinted canthther. It's just kind of crushed up shells here. or okay, we do have a little dusky cone here. So, that's what I kind of hope when I get down there at least there'll be, you know, one little thing. It isn't going to happen all the time. Sometimes it's just little pieces. All right, so we're not going to stop too long to look for tinies here. We're just going to keep it moving. See what else we can find. All right, spend two seconds in the rack. I'm terrible. I don't spend a lot of time up here except in the winter. So, that is a tinted canththerus. In the winter, I guess I do spend a lot of time up in the rack lines. That's all we do in the winter. But once it gets warm enough, I'm in the water. My hands are really wrinkly. It's my happy place. Lots of common arcs, the ponderous arcs, your little crossbar Venus clams and whatnot. Yeah. Back to the water. All right, that is an eastern augur. I did notice that there's a couple different augers we have down here. So, I will be on the hunt for different ones, but this one is really the the more common one, the eastern augur. Okay, we have a Oh, and it's empty this time. So, that is abandoned tulip. Terrific. It's got a little barnacle. A bonus a bonus barnacle. So, yeah, we'll hold on to that cute little thing. What else might be kind of rolling around? Not much. It's all right. Make me work a little harder. Okay. Little horse conchk. Beautiful or nice bright orange color. Empty. Fantastic. Great. That's our state shell. The Florida horse conchk. The big ones are desirable. I know. When I first started hunting, that's all I wanted to find. That is a gorgeous lettered olive that likely has passed the shine test. I do. I rub my thumb over the shells because you can feel how shiny they are. It's just one of those things with the olives. Oh, spiny jewel box. You got a nice little horn kind of going. It does look like a horn, right? Spiky, but that is a spiny jewel box. I like the cool color they are. When they're a juvenile, they will be kind of a reddish color and sometimes I guess it kind of keeps that color. Yep. I saw the horse conchk. A little yellow one. And oh, I was I thought for a hot second that was a marginella, but we have a coina, an augur, and another little horse conchk. So, yes, some of the tells with the shells are the shapes obviously, and sometimes it's the color, sometimes it's a combination of them. Augre, horse conchk, coina, and a scallop. A lovely calico scallop. And it's pretty traditional purple and whitish kind of colors. It's another coina. Yes, it is another little pinks. A couple of pinks. I see another flash of orange. Now, there are other shells that can be that bright orange color and the protocon. So, the white piece, that's how these shells start out. It's called the protocon. And then it just continues to grow it shell and it changes color as we've seen. Sometimes they're yellow, sometimes they're orange. Hello, beautiful. Oh, okay. Well, you're occupied. Sorry. Is that a drill hole? Like an almost drill hole? I don't know. But good luck. You do your thing. Fighting cog. Going to keep hunting. Looking for something empty. Key waiting is so pretty. This is one of Yeah. one of my favorite islands. And this island has been really good to me. So I keep coming back. All right. So that's a piece of lion's paw. What in the heck? It's weird. Beautiful. Could you imagine if that was like if the whole shell Oh, the color. Oh, it's so pretty. I mean, it is barely a couple knuckles. I'm not going to keep it. Maybe somebody else wants to keep that. So, it's a little piece of a lion's paw. See what other treasures might be here. Creature. Seashell. Oh, a turid. So that is a Tampa turid. So turids are another family of shells. You have scallops, clams, turids, gastropod. So that one really pretty. The Tampa turid. Nice little se kind of looks like an augur. I mean, I can tell the difference. The aperture is a little broken, but that's a Tampa turid. Not to be confused with the Santael turid. What are the chances? So really f All right. A little different. Let's look at these side by side. So the tamper turret's got a whole bunch of little lines. The Santael only has a few like real strong kind of ribs in it. So that's fun. The tamper turid and the Santael turid. Yay. Olive. You know, I thought, you know, is it albino? I'm on the hunt for an alb I'm on the hunt for an albino anything, frankly. But that lettered, the albino lettered olive, that's something I've couple years at this point. Hopefully I'll find it. But honestly, the hunt, the hunt is the fun part. And I'm just going to have to be consoled with this rather light lettered olive. And that is just fine. Okay, another one of those little horse conchks. This one's kind of It's empty. Yay. That's most important part. You can kind of see it's protocon. This one's a little more on the yellow side. Just one of those things that delight me. What color is it going to be? How big is it? Most importantly, is it going to be empty? This looks like summer to me. So, with the waves just kind of lapping. All right, we do have a little lightning all little worse for wear. Not a whole lot, you know, kind of summer. It slows down a little bit. There is kind of a seasonality to this whole shelling business. All right, there's a little fighting conchk. Cute little thing. You're terrific. Is that coral? I can't quite What is All right, that's a little banded tulip. It's kind of missing its bands at this point, but still fun. Fun little shell. Hold on to that. Frankly, it's a shell. Yay. We're going to hold on to that. Oh, a Florida cone. A very well- behaved Florida cone. Look, it's almost perfect. Oh, that's lovely. They I tend to find them kind of broken up, but that one's real nice. Yeah, there's the coral, which is kind of unusual. I looked it up and frankly, the closest coral to me over here, the closest reefs are going to be in the Florida Keys. So, yeah, it's got to make quite a trip. And it's always the thin fingered coral, too. At least over here on the West Coast. That's that's what tends to wash up over here. And it's kind of discouraged. We don't want to collect coral. We'll leave it at the beach. That is a broad ribbed card. fun little underrated shell. They've got nice strong colors. Maybe that's what it kind of appeals to me. And for a hot second, what's really weird about this is this kind of looks like a moon snail operum. So the little trapoor for the moon snail, but it's it's not. This is actually a piece of glass, but f that for me was kind of like what? And then I discovered it was glass. Tinted canththeras. You've been here a minute. Looks like you're harboring another piece of shell in there, but that's okay. We are probably going to collect you, tinted canththerus. Yeah, that's just a piece. Yeah, there's no way. Well, I guess it's possible. Highly unlikely. What? That's fine. I'm not going to keep it anyway, but highly unlikely that you would find an entire alphabet cone kind of sitting in this area. Possible, just not very likely. Oh, there's another little piece of sealass. Yeah, it's kind of cooked. I mean, it's not sharp, but yeah, I always wear shoes anyway just to protect my feet. There's a piece of one of those turrets. Do you remember if it's a Tampa or a Santael? Yep, Santaelle. You're all right. I knew you were all thinking Santael. So, just a little piece of a Santael turid. Okay, another bandit tour. Yep. So, another one of those centura hunteria. Terrific. Cute little thing. Little gastropod. Oh, I was getting grabby. I missed it. What was I looking for? Little horse. Okay. I was looking for a little horse conk. It's a little bit bigger than its protock. How tiny itty bitty itty bitty horse conk Florida cone. This one's on the orange side. That's a little almost got some of that pink hue. Yeah, that pinkish hue to it. Sometimes you'll find shells are actually red colored shells from really tiny creatures get smooshed up and stain the shell. It's We'll talk about that another time. Here we have another apple mir. I would call that almost like a brunette apple mir. We have brunette, strawberry, blonde, and sometimes you find like the blonde ones. Pretty. Most importantly, it's empty. Another calico scallop. So, no shortage of shells for certain. Lovely. Oh, there's another. That's a good one. I'd consider that also a brunette apple mir. That one's got kind of like a point. I mean, the shells are very uh textured. The apple mir have a lot of texture to them. Fun. A giant Atlantic cockal. Or is it an Atlantic giant cockal? Either way, it's a giant cockal. Pretty cool. I call them beach bowls cuz they come in real handy if you have nothing else to hold things. Oh, yes. Love the ribbed canththeras. So, we've seen a couple of the tinted canththeras, kind of its cousin, and this is a ribbed canththeras. I don't know why I just really like those. Look at the cool pattern on that calico scallop. Really cool pattern on it. Yep. Just the little things that delight me. The size, the color, the texture. Oh, my ride's here. Okay, I better better wrap it up here. So, I got over here today with the Hemingway shuttle. Now, for my mobility challenge friends, there is a ramp. So, if you really can't do stairs, you really can't get on and off the boat, give Hemingway Water Shuttle a call because they just have this really easy ramp that you get on and off the boat from. You can find them over at hemingwayshuttle.com. If you do go, tell them Charmin sent you. They're really awesome people. They're they're so good. And I'm also I'm going to put a link in the description box below. And it was such a pretty day. So, we're leaving some of these sand bar. Sand moves around. As much as we try to control it, a couple of these sand bars pop up and then the birds just kind of hang out and it's just really pretty. Now, not every time you leave these islands, but sometimes the dolphin will be out. And so, the dolphin, they're very curious. They're amazing that So, we have bottl-nose dolphins down here. And there they are. And this is a I guess like a little pod of females because they're See, did you see the little baby? So, they call the little ones footballs. And look how curious they are. It was It You know what? And I've been here quite a while. I've had many of these experiences and it I'm telling you, it never gets old to see these animals out in the wild in their environment. So, we're in their territory. It's re it's just a really really fun experience. And the other thing I'd like to say about the Hemingway water shuttle is that they they will stop their boats. They will kind of get close to the dolphin. Not you know not dangerously close but so that the guests can enjoy this kind of experience. So that's another thing again doesn't get old. Now these will be mostly moms. The adult males they kind of go off on their own. Sometimes there'll be pairs of them, but if you see kind of a group of dolphins, it's typically it's going to be the females and it's going to be the babies. Now, what I Oh, did you see the little one? It's so cute. So, it's funny cuz I looked it up and there is this thing. It's called aloe mothers. And basically that's when other adult females, it's going to be younger females, those that might or might not have their own baby, they will assist the mothers by babysitting the calf or protecting the calf from predators. So mommies, they they do get some assistance. A Now is this a shot? There was one of the dolphins that had the dorsal fin was really pretty beat up that maybe. Yeah. Did you see that one? Um they named them. That's how they identify they like scientists, people who study dolphins, they um look at the dorsal fins. That's how they kind of identify themselves. I don't know what they're they're horsing around. They're dolphining around. Dolphin play. Yep. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. A So yeah. So yeah, I'm on like just a crazy like Florida buzz, you know. I'm just vibrating with goodness. I just was on the island. I got to say hi to some sea stars and some sea cucumbers. And now I'm coming back and I'm seeing dolphins. I've got shells in my shell bag. I'm so lucky. Oh, that one dorsal fin on that. Oh, baby. Yeah. No, it doesn't look worse for wear. looks like it's having a pretty good time. It's got a lot of friends hanging out eating. You know, they they um only half their brains sleep at a time. So, while the left part of their brain is sleeping, the right part is helping it get to the surface and breathe and do all of that good dolphin stuff. Now, they do range in size between 6 to 12 feet. And what's not weird, but the males are larger than the females. In a lot of the things that I encounter in in the ocean and stuff, the the females are larger, but in the bottl-nose dolphin case, the males are larger. And it was just it was such a remarkable and special day. So garbage. Yes, I did take a little bit of garbage off the beach. 1.15 o. So it was just a little bit, but it adds up over time. I've removed a little over 75 lbs of garbage from the beach. Couple pieces of sealass I've removed as well. Some Florida fighting conchs. Broad ribbard. There's tinted canththeras, spiny jewelbox, apple murix. There's some banded tulips. There's some calico scallops, some lettered olives. We have some augers. There's one little sarith in there, some coinas, a worm snail, a shark eye, the little horse conchs, and that little beach bowl, some lightning welks, and then my favorites today were the alphabet cone, that kind of light lettered olive, the two Florida cones, the dusky cone, that ribbed canthther, the two turids, and the spotted slipper snail. So, I actually had a lot of favorites, even though I didn't manage to find all that much. Patreons, thank you so very much. And everybody, hang around. I've got my announcement coming up next. But first, I would just like to thank everybody for their support and choosing to come along with me on this little journey called Shelling and Life because frankly, I am learning so much about Florida, everything it has to offer. I'm learning about myself. I'm kind of stretching and some of the things that I'm doing. Okay, ready? So, this is a lake and that creature right there, that is a soft shell turtle. It is a freshwater turtle and I'm able to film it because I took scuba dive lessons and I am now an openwater certified scuba diver. So, this was part of many um four there was four different dives I had to do in order to be certified. And I got to record this was like um a test for me. This really cool freshwater turtle. Now, it's not a sea turtle, but I'm hoping, you know, I'm I'm hoping in the future. So, I did manage to go to the West Coast, and I will be sharing it with you next week. So, next week, we're not going to a beach. We're going to be diving. Look at how fun he came. He came up to my mask, and he also came right up to the camera. So, that was really, really cool. So, I Yeah, we're we have a whole new chapter. We're going to go see the Copenhagen. And so I'm going to show you a little bit about that. Again, that's going to be next week. So, it's going to be very, very, very different next week. And I can't wait to see what other kind of amazing things are out there. So, we're going to talk more. I want to tell you all about my little adventure. So, until then, I hope you have a really great week and I can't wait to see you next Sunday.