Island shelling Keewaydin, Naples. Let's go on a virtual beach walk for shells and beach treasures.

how do you feel about visiting a beautiful island off the coast of florida i am going to assume i'm hearing an enthusiastic yes please so beach friends today we'll be checking out a brand new beach on key wayden island i'm going to tell you how i got to this island how much it cost and why i chose to travel the way i did then we're going to go exploring this island that is only accessible by boat we'll see lots of beautiful beach we're going to find a few shells and goodies along the way like this beauty so let's get started and head on over to the beach [Music] [Applause] [Music] so here we are guys on a brand new island we are at key wayden island which is technically naples and typically my understanding is the beach doesn't normally look like this it's pretty crowded during season which typically starts in the fall and through the winter so i got really lucky and coming here kind of after season is kind of slowing down so i get a lot of this beach to myself so i was feeling very fortunate and it also looks like there's going to be lots of goodies on the beach so it's going to be great okay we're going to start off with this lovely lightning milk and this scallop so so far so good i'm definitely seeing things on the beach here's a little sand dollar it's kind of missing a piece i'll leave that for someone else and here's another lightning welk so typically if i get out in the beach and i'm finding things right away i'm pretty much guaranteed an awesome day speaking of awesome look at this lace mirrors just sitting there waiting for someone to come pick it up oh a pretty scallop so we're gonna have a great time i'm super excited to show this walk with you here we have a sunray venus clam look at how clear that water is oh yeah it was pretty awesome so i was kind of going back and forth currently i do i love florida fighting conks but it's really early in my trip and they're heavy so i'm going to try to hold off on picking up too many of those florida fighting conks early in my trip and i was kind of i had a little bit of a dilemma because i do like to walk slow so i don't miss anything but it looked like i had the perfect opportunity to really be the first one out on the beach and maybe discover some of those larger shells oh aren't those birds pretty so i was trying to take my time but yet still kind of cover as much area as possible and look it's not the greatest shape granted but i'm pretty sure i'm looking at a zigzag scallop it's obviously flat but i think that is a zigzag one i had misidentified one of these before with a round rib i think that one's a zigzag here we have another lovely lightning whelk nice size nice color oh and i know i know i'm trying not to collect these but i can't help at least checking it out it's okay i can't keep it anyway there's a critter in there there's a live florida fighting conch it's beautiful yeah let's put it near the water let it do its florida fighting thing wait a minute it's not really close enough is it now so let yeah there we go let's get it closer to the water and what do we got a banded tulip oh it's gorgeous almost like an apricot color i'm going to try to keep my excitement level down i don't want to freak anybody out but i really i was having so much fun here is another banded tulip it's a little chipped but as long as one side looks okay i'm gonna keep it i have found a use for some of those shells like that guy okay big big chunk missing still got a good side i'm gonna hold on to that and this weird little worm snail it's also kind of worn down weird i like it oh and this pretty scallop calico scalp with a gorgeous pattern on it very nice oh another we'll just gonna find a lot of those lightning welts as you will see so it's a little bit better shape oh let me hold on to that guy and we'll just take a peek i know it's a florida finding but it's still it's juvenile so it's not super heavy yet and another well not another actually and this is a moon snail a shark eye so yep those are a bunch of keepers i'm gonna take it was lovely there were things on the beach there were things in the water it was gonna be great see the birds down in the distance and i know i said i was really trying to hold off but it was bright yellow so i really just wanted to take a look at it and i figured you know it's not like there's too many people wandering around i'm going to leave it here and if it's there when i come back it was meant to be and then here it looks like i found myself an alphabet cone i'll be it a little beat up but that's okay those are still cones are real great fine so i'm going to keep it anyway and this lovely lettered olive oh and they're dark and shiny they're the best okay scanning oh we have ourselves an apple murax look kind of a dark color oh it looks like that is a rough scallop just lovely just sitting there just waiting for me so we're scanning and i definitely missed one um i see it later in the video i'll point it out but it happens sometimes i find great stuff and i definitely miss things once in a while here we have a lightning whelk so i can only i hope i never find out all the shells that i missed that would be terrible i don't ever want to know look it's just sitting right there another alphabet cone oh it's in great shape oh man nice size it's not really broken it looks like it needed to repair itself at some point but that is a stunning find really happy with that another florida fighting conquest oh he look at the pattern isn't that cool i know i said it wasn't going to take any but i might have to make an exception another lightning milk and oh yes there is just goodies all over the place there is another juvenile florida fighting conch those don't count they're light i'll take as many as i can to those that's okay oh the color on that looks like a rough scallop beautiful so things that it looks like the colors are really kind of popping out to me now there's another calico scallop what else what else are we gonna find oh well hi there little perfect alphabet cone where have you been i guess right here and well let's talk about where we are actually where i said told you we're at key wayden island which is a little sliver of islands off the coast of florida which is technically in naples now typically we're up north and we'll kind of let's go through that and i'll show you kind of where we are here's the gulf of mexico and there is sanibel we have definitely been there before and then there's fort myers beach there's marco island we've also been there and then that that is where key wayden island is how did i get there well i am so glad you asked when i was researching on how to get to key wayne island i came across a few different options but honestly my main concern was that i would have plenty of time to explore the island so the last time i went on a shell tour i very much enjoyed it but i did feel a little rushed because i only had about two hours on the island and i'm also operating on a budget so i can't afford to charter my own boat but the next best thing i could find was the hemingway water shuttle the hemingway water shuttle offered several different times to depart the marina to get to the island and then several different return trip times so i was able to get out there pretty early and then return later in the afternoon so i had almost close to six hours on this gorgeous island the one-way cost was 24.20 cents so my total trip was 48.40 which i thought was really quite reasonable compared to the other tours that are available the crew was kind thoughtful and made sure we saw some dolphins on our trip so i would really really highly recommend looking into hemingway water shuttle if you plan on taking a trip over to keyway then island and here we have ourselves another oh that guy's perfect or gal perfect keyhole sand dollar just beautiful and another look at the markings on this one oh it's so pretty i mean it's gonna bleach out white but i can still appreciate what it looks like for now oh and yellow i don't find many yellow scallops so if i see one even if it's really beat up i'm pretty much going to pick it up and i just i have a thing about the lightning bolts that a certain size they did they just look awkward to me oh pretty that is another calico scallop oh there's all sorts of goodies and here's some birds some turns and some skimmers and typically if you just walk real slow they kind of just get out of your way i don't like to disturb them you really don't chase them and don't make them fly a lot of times they're really just trying to recover because they do a lot of traveling see all those florida conchs i'm trying to show restraint i'm leaving them there oh i see a tulip yep beaut oh well no it's still it's gorgeous i'm still keeping that i know it's a little chipped but that's okay yeah it's fine just a little chip oh another sand dollar i do bring a hard case with me it's plastic real light i keep it in my shell bag and so that's where all the delicate things like those sand dollars are gonna go cool worm snail oh it's a little broken on the bottom so we'll leave that lightning look there we got plenty cool and apple murrex now you'll notice this guy they seem to me to come in two colors this is the light variety like the apricot variety and then there's the dark variety here we have a lightning whelk egg casing and it appears all the little babies have left that little hole right there that is a hole that's where they came out of so hopefully out there somewhere a little baby lightning welks trying to make themselves bigger and pretty all right i see some things to check out it's pretty lightning locks aside i have some restraint just a little bit and this lightning walk and i know that's a little broken but he's perfect for me i'm gonna take it and another apple murex now this one's kind of a dark one so it's talking about the lighter kind of like that apricot color and then this is darker one oh great shape that's a fabulous shell an orange scallop because i really can't resist orange and another sand dollar in great shape awesome clearly not alive he has no spines it's a light color lightening well orange oh i know it's broken don't care it's really beautiful i'm gonna keep it anyway and a turkey wing your funny little shells i'd love to find a live one that would be really cool not yet maybe one day and a paper fig these guys they are really delicate i mean that shell is really really really thin and we did find a live one once was so cool i'll put a link in the description if you want to see a live one in the description below i'll leave a link and here i found a piece of a flat scalp maybe it's a zigzag i can't really tell i'm not great at those but it is flat it's a little bit broken and it's perfect for me i'm gonna keep it here we have a base scallop oh kind of missing a little piece but that's okay i'm gonna keep it anyway oh look at all the goodies what am i gonna go for all right this paper fig another one very nice these delicate little creatures little shells really oh that's a really cool pattern really cool like sunrise pattern nice that orange one's real nice that's a calico and another base scallop and another paper fig and a turkey wing cool all sorts of goodies all right let's check out this scallop oh i wish i could could have been here for six days instead of six hours but it is what it is i want to just kind of skim you know take my time as much as i can but not spend too much time well you might miss something like that which i'm going to keep it it's not in great shape i'm going to keep it anyway oh lightning lock yep nice one of those dark ones beautiful it needs a little cleaning but i'm i'm ready for the challenge a little bleach a little dental pick action that thing will be as good as new oh beautiful lacy muric so just to show you only what maybe 45 minutes have elapsed since i landed on the island so i've been doing i've been finding wonderful stuff left and right and here's the second shark eye and it's funny because i had been thinking wow i'm not really seeing as many shark eyes and then i found this one so i started thinking wow i really haven't found a giant horse so i was hoping maybe that would help my chances probably not but hey it couldn't hurt to at least throw that out there to the universe and here we have another real pretty florida fighting conk and i know i'm trying real hard but it's like kind of yellow it's got a cool pattern so i'm going to keep that two more real pretty scallops very nice add that to my collection ooh speaking of nice scallops beautiful rough scallop yeah it was a hard choice should i shell in the water or should i show on the beach i know it was terrible here's another real pretty orange scallop and what else we got looks like we might have ourselves another apple all right looks like you could use a little bit of cleaning which i will be happy to do take that lovely shell cool another one of those paper figs now the first couple ones i had put in that hard plastic case and then i kind of started finding so many i'm like it's fine i'll throw it in throughout my shell bag because i can only put so many things in that little case so this is pick my head up and this is what the view looked like not too shabby no homes that i can see but there are actually homes here oh weird okay there's a spiny jewel box and a pear whelk it's a fine little shell but look at the coloring on this one now this is also a pear whelk but the color is just stunning so it can go anywhere from that real washed out kind of color to that and that is really really pretty there was a lot of shell piles and it was you know i kind of was going back and forth between the water and the beach just kind of scanning to see if i could see anything walk in the water because the water is going to give me for at least from what i can tell now the best opportunity to get one of those big old horse conks probably not going to be lying on the beach for me i'm going to have to kind of dig it out of the water so don't want to ignore what's going on in the water and here is some sort of i believe soft coral i don't know for sure i honestly couldn't find this in any books or anything beautiful coloring but i just i think that that's what that is that's some sort of soft coral this is kind of really cool oh and a live lightning walk yep i saw him hey buddy i don't think he was trying to get a tan or anything so we'll check out his shell see if he's going to say hi not really that's fine we got plenty of stuff to do we're busy we have things to do places to be things to do here's another paper fig nice nice thin little guy there's another one and i'm to show some restraint i'm going to just leave it for once i'll show a little restraint once or twice today there is another shell pile so i'm doing a scan there we have ourselves a banded tulip not bad at all happy with that shell ooh and another one of those pear welks great color on that yay pretty pretty pear welcome okay the scanning you guys see anything look it looks like i spotted an another one of those apple murics that's one of the lighter kind of colored guys happy to clean that up when i get home it was gorgeous the water was pretty those clouds no threat of rain just beautiful puffy white clouds and it was also i love shelling in the water so i was doing a great job on the beach but i also wanted to you know i can't help it i just need to at least peek around in the water and i found myself a hinged little sunray venus clam and i want to show off my my skills and i just scooped that little horse conqueror right out of the water there all right now i know i've gotten a lot of feedback that people kind of like scanning so i'm trying to kind of go slow to give you guys a chance to kind of see what else is out there a beat up alphabet cone yeah that guy's a little bit too beat up oh cool worm snail oh little paper fig very cool little tiny one do some more scanning out looks like we got cool lightning milk nice dark color looks like they're oh yes awesome some bonuses in there all right i'll take that so we're scanning and paper fig but it's just yeah just now it's got a couple chips couple holes we'll just leave it we found enough pretty ones we'll take this spiny jewel box very cool and scanning the hunt is so much fun it really is it's kind of looking and all of a sudden something jumps out at you and it's awesome thank you guys for coming along with me so speaking of thanking you for coming along with me we have been together for a little over 22 minutes at this point so i'm going to say thank you again for being with me for coming with me and we are going to finish our walk next week we're going to talk a little bit about key waiting island a little bit of the history and what's kind of going on here and we'll finish our walk on all the shelves and we'll do a wrap up of all the things that we find so thank you for being awesome thank you for coming with me i will see you again next week and i just want to give a special shout out to my patreons who do support me monetarily and literally make trips like this possible so thank you you guys are the best have a great week and i will see you next sunday