North Captiva Island Florida. What to expect on a shelling and beachcombing on a local tour.

hello beach friends today we'll be visiting another island we haven't been to yet north captiva we will be exploring the beach on this island and i'll be sharing all the goodies i find along the way now in order to get to this island we're gonna need to take a boat so i'll let you know which company i used how much it cost and all my thoughts on the tour that i took let's go find some beachy goodness [Music] so [Music] we are going to start our day over at a marina in fort myers a friend had taken a tour with these guys adventures in paradise so i wanted to give them a try so i could share what my experience was like i'll put a link in the description box below for the adventures in paradise website i booked the ko costa beach escape and cruise which would have taken us to the island of ko costa but the weather was kind of rough and really windy so for the safety and well-being of everybody on the boat we were diverted over to north captiva for our beach excursion the cost was 69 plus tax and the tour lasted from 9 00 a.m until 2 p.m so that means i had a time limit so as we made our way over to north captiva the adventures in paradise captain and first meet informed us about the local area and how hurricanes have changed the coastline over the years all the critters we came upon were pointed out to us and some sort of interesting fact was shared making this part of the cruise informative and interesting all right once we hit land i wanted to hit the beach asap and see what kind of goodies were out there for us so here we are again on north captiva island and let's just quickly kind of review where that is so it's on the west coast of florida it's one of those other little islands and the area we were exploring right there that's the area that we are kind of going to be walking around today so where is that in comparison to everything else here's the gulf of mexico there's sanibel here's captiva and then above that is north captiva crazy right i know now where we were supposed to be is up here that's koya costa but i'll go there another time no big deal and then where we started was there so that's the marina we started from and we ended up exploring up there on north captiva island so there were zero shells by the water um which is the first indication that it might be a little bit of a slow shelling day but i always end up finding something so i wasn't discouraged but i was on kind of a time constraint i only had so much time i needed to be back by 12 30 so i was the you know clock is ticking and i wanted to make sure that i covered as much beach as possible so the first thing that stuck out to me is this giant atlantic cockle the color is actually a little bit lighter than i normally see perhaps because it's been sitting on the beach for a bit here we have a buttercup lucine with that yellow buttery color on the inside and okay we have a prickly cockle one of those yep it's got all those little little prickly things on it aptly named shell so it was very very windy and there was kind of a layer of sand kind of on everything here we have a base scallop that's a decent fine i'm kind of holding on to it so it doesn't blow away and here's two more bay scallops that look like they could probably use a little bit of a acid dip there is quite a bit of white on them calcification and here we have a clam this is a calico clam very fancy for a clam i like those guys when i first got to the beach i was kind of left with the decision do i go left or do i go right and i walked away from people so i'm kind of heading north didn't see anybody this way it's real pretty it usually is oh cool all right here we have a scallop i'm pretty sure that that is actually the lower dome of a zigzag that's what i'm thinking that is and here we have a base scallop a chipped base scallop oh well but at least we're finding something that's that's awesome that is also a bay scallop nice size i do not typically find big big scallops like that so yay okay another little prickly cockle it's the florida quickly cockle the yellow prickly cockle will have the yellow on it and here we have a little now this is one of those little sea urchins it is expired it's no longer with us very light it was just dehydrated there's nothing left to it but you just kind of rub those spines off and i'm going to clean that up and seal it and that's going to be really pretty so happy with that little find and another base scallop all right that guy's real pretty oop butter fingers yet another pretty scallop all right looks like i'm in the same area and i found a little sunray venus complete with a little drill hole somebody drilled a hole in that little shell ooh a scout calico scallop very pretty nice size on that guy very pretty calico scallop so i'm still moving there's really zero chance of finding anything in the water so i'm 100 up the beach about one half hour has elapsed at this point so trying to cover as much beach as possible we have a lightning milk and that is actually in really good shape although i'm not going to hold on to that those are like the first ones i give away so that one was given away here we have an olive it's like the color on this it's just kind of weird and streaky so i like that olive that's a lettered olive here's another scallop hmm it doesn't you know the shape is kind of weird looks kind of oval so i'm just kind of checking that out to see if it was chipped that is another calico scallop and yet another and another bay scallop all right neato another prickly cockle no shortage of those it looks like another olive and this has got some weird coloring on it and look it's got a little bit of shine so that's great i do like those guys and it's just it's got weird coloring so i'm definitely keeping that guy now this guy i did a lot of research and i still can't figure out what this is i thought at first it was a telling i was like okay no big deal i want to go figure out what kind of telling it is and i found another one i don't normally bunch these together but this is the second of that shell i found i still can't figure out what it was then there was a third one now this is a little bit bigger so i'm not entirely sure that that's the same as the previous two maybe that's a surf clam somebody help me out what are these little beautiful white shells and there we had a top snail i had found it it was not you know the bottom was facing up and i was really hoping it was whole but it's broken but that's sorry i'm keeping it anyway now this was weird see that there that's actually indented so that has a little dent in that shell that's just weird i've never seen that all right do you see what i'm gonna go for you see it just kind of i'm kind of training you guys all right there that's what i was going for i was going for that chestnut turbine and i was looking at the aperture the opening of the shell and that's what kind of my eye picked up a little bit different than everything else that was going on so i found this fantastic turban and here we have another calico clam they're swell little clams and then i found this lightning lock kind of buried under here i had to get him out he's he's an okay shape and oh just a piece florida fighting conch you see some orange in there it's a broad rib cardita it's a scanning seeing what else i might find so again it's a real bummer for me i can't be in the water but i'm not going to complain all that much because frankly the view is pretty awesome yeah it's real pretty half of the sun well i wouldn't say half some of this island is owned by the state of florida and some of this island is privately owned so it's kind of a cool place and here we have this is my new favorite shell this is the lady in waiting venus clam and that's about as big it's gonna get it's not gonna really get too much bigger and that's my new favorite shell i so move over sailor's ear and here we are lady and wading venus here's a turkey wing and i noticed that i hadn't found those in a while it's been a while since i've found a turkey wing so that was kind of interesting check this out okay so this is a apollo gate is what actually kind of made those marks on this florida fighting conch shell it's a bristle worm and it's a class of marine worm which leaves snaking groove marks on shells and their indentations are made as the worm rasps its bristled body aided by acid it secretes so wouldn't want to mess around with one of those guys and here we have a spiny jewel box of the one big old point variety do you like those guys and another one of my favorites okay so that's the lady in waiting venus clam i know it's just a clam i know it's not that exciting but it's my new favorite one so we're going to add this to our repertoire as well and here now this guy this is just a ribbed arc there's yeah or cut rib dark rather it's pretty big i don't normally find them this big frankly i don't normally pick them up but the arcs are so similar and they're usually quite small and so it's something that i'm really trying to to learn i believe that's a ponderous arc there's a couple different ones um there's like four of them but they're so similar so it's going to take me a while to really kind of nail them but i'm learning here we have a lightning welc and that was right next to a piece of a shark oh a beat up piece of shark eye not well but there we go lightly welcome shark eye and yep that buttercup lucine those are very distinct shape to those guys and of course you can always just flip it over to confirm that's exactly what you're looking at it's a buttercup blue scene and another so normally it would have that yellow color on the inside look at this kind of like a little bowl holding a couple little oh it looks like a police or bristle worm got a hold of that shell as well so that is a buttercup leucine complete with some marks in it and here is a coquina and it was just so pretty i wanted to take a look pretty big cocaine they actually have ones that are bigger than that i haven't found one but that is a coquina and here we have a little jingle of the orange variety and now what am i uh i see it you see it it's that olive yep so trying to give you guys a chance to this is a great opportunity to kind of do that to do the scanning thing and that i really like that olive so when talking about scanning the things that you're going to want to look for are the different shapes the different spirals maybe it's the opening of the shell the aperture the different colors maybe something shiny will stick out to you like that shark eye and anything that kind of looks different you're going to want to scan look at that kind of has almost that blue color in the middle so it's really kind of what i do i just kind of scan here's a buttercup leucine with the hole in it oh and there's the aperture the opening of that chestnut turbine that's what kind of stuck out to me in in that particular instance and let me know please leave me a comment what is your favorite shell i you guys probably all know my favorite show but i'd like to know what you guys like i bet you i'll be surprised so please do drop me a comment and let me know maybe this one maybe that new lady and weight is lady in waiting venus will be your new favorite shell look at how shiny so that's a letter olive and it's awesome beautiful and i see something purple all right just a little muscle just a little muscle it's kind of got that naked in there that mother of pearl and probably that yellow yep a yellow prickly cockle kind of a neat shell what else we got all right another base scallop good thing i do like those scallops and a piece of a horse because that's how it goes for me today and that's okay and bay scallop i guess i'll keep that and here is a calico calico scallop a little worn but the color is kind of cool so i'm going to keep that anyway and a little kitten paw and it was hinged so that was kind of cool i find them hinged but sometimes they're closed real tight and so i don't take them because i never know they're viable or not and here we have now that is a terrific lightning walk bet you that's not going to make it home with me either looks like a gift that's what that looks like so all right do you guys see it a little different it was this is a gaudy nautica and it looked very brown to me normally it's kind of like a golden color but that one was very brown so much so i almost thought it was a cuban land snail but just a kind of a weird looking gladiator here's just some pretty purple and pink calico scallop and we're scanning again tons of little venus little arcs i see more prickly cockles and scallops what a fun way to spend the day all right time is elapsing i've only got a little less than 45 minutes to go now this guy i wanted to i was interested to see what the inside of the olive looks like so it is a spiral shape and it's a little bit flat on that piece that would be exposed if the entire shell were intact i'm going to show you the the inside of the top because you can really kind of see the spiral in there there it is so i just thought that was kind of neat looks like something chomped on that maybe a sea turtle and another urchin another expired urchin so i'm going to clean him up and take that home oh dear yes that is the aristotle's lantern the mouthpiece of it and a beat up apple murax and that time it was the shape and kind of the color that poked out to me and a little serious just a regular old sarath and okay here we have a little this is a little crown conch it's a little bit beat up at that and another turkey wing all right kind of cool his turkey wings finding a couple in the same day after not seeing him for so long i'm scanning another scallop am i going to pick up that one yep oh see that's i feel like that's domed that's more domed shape and i feel like that's the part of a zigzag and a beat up lightning oh deer well i kind of like that you can see the inside i know it's beat up maybe it'll clean up i'm gonna keep it so here we are the giant atlantic cockles section of beach even though i'm picking up a scallop there's a whole bunch of those guys so i'm just scanning looking to see if there's any kind of gem in there at this point i mean the beaches really kind of picked over so i'm frankly happy with everything that i'm getting here's another sun ray venus and see how that shell has kind of a natural shine to it that is something you would not want to put in acid not that those shells need it typically but just kind of throwing it out there although the scallops they clean up real nice if you were to use the acid in here i just find this interesting looks like it came in in contact with a boring sponge that just kind of sucks out the calcium of those shells dang it big old piece of lightning wok won't want anything else i'm just scanning looking for shapes and colors and an olive not terrible all right he's got a little bit of shine on him but oh he's kind of a nice size wow it's got a whole little clam stuck in there it has a big old olive i'm gonna keep that guy another one of my favorite but this one has a little hole on top of it so that makes it even that much more special poor guy got snacked on and lightning well beat up lightning welk all right he's definitely seen better days that's okay kind of a slow day just in case somebody else needs a lightning welcome might hold on to that now look at this what do you see the shape those shark eyes almost always are with the bottom side up unless they're broken i have finally learned so always looking looking for all the different shapes now this shell i really liked that's a rough scallop and i did ultimately clean that up with acid and cleaned up real nice and that's a pretty rough scallop and it looks like another urchin yeah another expired dried out urchin i'm gonna take that home and clean it up and okay i'll still pick it up but that used to be my new favorite shell but that's not anymore it is a sailor's ear or a channel duck clam still very cool shell nothing wrong with it so i liked this shell tour i really didn't like the fact that i only had so much time but i definitely liked this particular tour i did like this island and i still get to go back to koya costa because we weren't supposed to be at north captiva we're supposed to be at another island so i kind of think that's cool i think i'm going to have the benefit of actually seeing two different islands i saw that one by mistake and another time i'm going to go back to koya costa so at this part of the tour look we get to see dolphins and they did let us know about this that we're they were going to take an extra you know 10-15 minutes to go about and let us enjoy some bottlenose dolphins which are awesome they live to be about 60 years old in the wild in captivity it's about half that long and the adult dolphin eat up to about 30 pounds of fish a day crazy now what's also really cool about these guys is that when they're resting when they're sleeping they relax half their brain at a time so while one half of their brain is kind of sleeping the other half is letting them come up to the surface to breathe so it's that's how they rest one half of their brain at a time which i find to be fascinating and the captains and the first mate from adventures in paradise said that they seem to be more active when the tide is coming in and out so maybe they're feeding at those times and then they're resting while the tide is kind of slack so just another thing that we found interesting i thought it was great that they allowed us to have this time and just probably about guaranteed that if you went on this kind of tour you're going to see dolphins now as we were enjoying these dolphins check out the very front of that boat just give it a second look at them they're playing the bolt cut the boat rather kind of pushes them it propels them through the water so they kind of have their playing it's just so fun now something i haven't mentioned yet um that i would like to mention if you do decide to go on a tour like this please check the weather there were people freezing um it was in the 50s and we were on the water and it was cold i was dressed for it because i was expecting it but there are a lot of people who are not expecting it so make sure you always look for that weather and these guys adventures in paradise also offer another um eco tour which i'm going to go on it's called sea life encounter excursion those what we're looking at right there those are osprey they had nested in this sign and they the avengers in paradise let us go by that real slowly so we can see that which was really cool so they have another wildlife excursion i'm going to go on another time let's look at the things i found today a couple of those beat up ones no big deal lots of prickly cockles which was kind of cool a couple of those buttercup blue scenes i think the scallops were my winners for the day for sure let me pull back i got a couple of those buy valves too so definitely got some cool scallops a couple of the little florida fighting conks and some calico clams and then my favorites are the urchins this rough scallop the uh turban the chestnut turban and the god and nautica couple olives and the lightning wack and the turkey wings and all that good stuff so very cool big thumbs up thank you to you guys for watching and thank you so much to my producers my patreons who actually made this trip today possible so thank you guys for watching thank you for all your support please don't forget to leave me a comment what your favorite show is and i'll see you again next week