Seashell hunting on shell island. The shells are showing up again!

Unlike seashells, I believe happiness isn't something you stumble upon. It's something you create. For me, that means being intentional with how I spend my time. I plan for the things I love. I make room for them, and I chase after them with joy. And right here, surrounded by seashells, is where all that intention turns into pure happiness. So today I'm going to make my way from the marina to Shell Island with one simple intention to spend my time doing something I absolutely love. Shelling brings me joy, peace, excitement all rolled into one. And I'm excited to bring you along with me as we explore this little island covered in seashells. Now, there is a seasonality of shell collecting, and lately I've been lamenting that summers aren't great for finding shells, but I think the tides are turning in my favor. And I'll be able to talk about a couple of specimens that maybe I haven't mentioned in a while. Now, I was dropped off kind of on the let's see, it would be the east side of the island, and the good showing is kind of on the west side. So, I'm headed on that way. Not not even slowing down. I snagged this orange jingle. All right, maybe I slowed down momentarily. But I'm super excited to be here and I just cannot wait to see. I mean, just crunching over these piles and piles of shells is just amazing. This is a rough scallop. Little less common than the calico scallop. Not terribly hard to find, but aren't that pretty? A lovely scallop. So, here's another by valve. This is one of those Atlantic white semiles. So the shells come in like different families of shells and that there is a semile family. So that's one of them, one of the semileles. And here is a bay scallop. I happen to like those. I don't get the opportunity to find them in great condition. So I do like finding those delightful bay scallops. And there's going to be so many other fantastic things here. something that is kind of like a bucketless shell, which is exciting. And the color of the day was orange. So, if you happen to like orange seashells, well, I'm going to show you a couple of delightful little treasures. And if you're ready to see what else is out there for us today on Shell Island, let's go to the beach. [Music] [Applause] [Music] All right. I had mentioned I'm on Shell Island. It has a couple of different names. It's also called Second Chance Island or Cape Romano Scholes. There is another shell island up by the Tampa, but that's not where we are. Now, this island is kind of cool. It is closed from March through September because of those birds that we saw right now. They're just going to they're kind of on their own. I'm going to be careful of them as I look at this lovely Florida prickly cockle. Yep, that is awesome. I like those. There there couple of different sensory things going on the between the the way they feel and the way they look. That looks broken to me. That is a piece of shark eye. So, I saw the shark eye. The water really makes everything look pretty. And then you pick it up and you're like, h, not so much. So, I'm probably going to disturb the birds. I'm not going to chase them. Don't I encourage you to please not do that. Don't Oh my gosh. Don't chase the birds. And look at this bay scallop. Wow, that's so pretty. So, that is a bay scallop. I mentioned I like those. I really do. What do we got here? All right. Orange, not surprising, is broken. And it's a rough scallop. All right, that's fine. The color is what kind of grabbed my attention. A lot of the stuff is more uh monochromatic. Oh, there's the birds. But uh anything with a little color is a little bit easier to kind of snag and check out. Oh, yeah. That olive was looking good until it came to the surface. Okay, now the tide is kind of up right now. The way that my tour kind of worked, I'm waiting for the tide to go out for the shelling to kind of get good. All right, horse conchk. Fantastic. And don't worry about that white stuff. A lot of the time that stuff just picks right off. Not always, but sometimes. In this case, easily picks off. All right. It's got that beauty screen. Yep. Oh, you were looking fantastic. But yeah, that olive did have a hole in it. All right. Oh yeah, piece of a lightning look. I do encourage you if you happen to go, you know, shelling, if you go do check out everything because sometimes when you're looking for one thing, something else kind of pops up. Look at those clouds. So, yep. If I wasn't doing this kind of thing, I probably would have wanted to be a meteorologist. I really do. I love weather and these clouds, the way they're just kind of hanging. So, there is some storms out there and I'll talk about that later. For now, we're fine. Waiting for the tide to go out. Checking out what I can. All right, here's another shark eye. Yeah, that is a false shark eye. Yeah, that is not in very good shape. But again, the water kind of makes it look good. Yeah. And so sometimes it's not great. You know what? It is great though when it comes up and it's something that's like stunning. Like it it's the reveal. It's so fun. All right, here is a fighting conchk. What do we got? All right, that's looking pretty decent if you ask me. All right, it's okay. It does look like it went from a knobless to a knobbed fighting conchk. And you know what? Yeah, I'm going to hold on to that. Cool. We have a fighting conchk. And this is also called the conchk. Technically, it's not a conchk. It is called a horse conchk. It's actually a member of the tulip family, but we're just going to keep calling it horse conchk because I think that just kind of sticks at this point. So, here's an apple murix. Was looking okay underwater and yeah, it's a little pitted. We call that a little bit pitted. It's been hanging out here for a minute or two. Likely going to leave that here. So, not all, you know, not all that productive over there, but I kind of wanted to check out the island itself and see what's going on with these clouds. Kind of show you what's going on the interior. So, on the interior of the island, there is kind of this like pond, for lack of a better word. I didn't drink it, so I don't know if it's salt water or fresh water. Hard to say. I would venture to say it's probably quite salty. I imagine at some point that this entire island was overrun. And Sunray Venus clam. Okay, a little dry, but probably the most colorful thing I spied. So, I see the other the cockals and stuff. So, yeah. I mean, once the shells stay here for a minute, they're going to get bleached out. See lots of those uh Florida prickly holes. Okay, not all that hospitable for humans, but for birds it is awesome. Oh boy, there's some storms out. Oh my gosh. So, yeah, there's some storms. So, I want to show you those clouds. Anybody else a clouds fan? Oh, they're gorgeous. So, it's it's kind of freaky because you are pretty exposed out here, but the storms are they're miles away at this point. I have many apps. I kind of keep a track of everything while I'm looking for things like this gorgeous lightning welk. The sinestra folder sinestrm relatively common. Still fun to find if you find a nice big one. Those are big. The lightning welks and the horsecocks. The ones that get really big. Wow. Cool nutmeg. Those little twirly columelar folds. All right. So that is a little common nutmeg. delightful little show that looked I was just going to say it looked like an alphabet con and it is. It's been hanging out here for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? There was some other people on my tour though, so I'm going to hang on to it. So perhaps I'll just give it away. I mean, that's something that I wouldn't keep myself. I am a little bit of a shell snob. And it's really just a space thing. It's not that I don't think the shells are awesome. I do. They're all awesome. Yep. That little horsek totally awesome. That olive still awesome. Not gonna keep it. It does. Yeah, it's missing its top. And just from again from a space standpoint, I can't keep everything. Colorful moon snail. So, there's a couple moon snails that we can find. The colorful one. I do. I like it better than the shark eye. Ah, hard to say. I love it though. Don't normally find it with a drill hole in it. So, I don't know if they usually taste terrible. Somebody probably snacked on that little critter. Another piece of lightning welk and a top snail. A juju bee top snail. And that's the other thing I kind of appreciate about Florida shells. They're kind of on the small side. Like most of them are relatively small. This is a Florida cone. And that's a very typical size of a Florida cone. If the shells were big, I'd only I'd only be able to collect a few. So, I'm psyched that the shells aren't that big. And I can collect a whole bunch. So, that's another little horse conchk. Awesome. Yep. Got to make sure I'm checking the aperture to make sure there's no hermit crabs. There's nobody hanging out inside the shell. Just in case I Yeah, I don't think I've mentioned it yet. We only collect empty shells or shells that are not viable. That is another one of those Atlantic white simileies. Oh, and a little is that a golf oyster drill? It's like put the simile in the shell bag. Check out the Yeah, that is a golf oyster drill. It's It's worn down just a little bit. I do think on this trip we find a good example of one. So hopefully I'll be able to show you another. That's a rose murix. It's not in great shape, granted, but still fantastic find. So that is one of the more desirable Murix shells. Oh, that is cool. I still have yet to find a cabaret mir. I am still looking for that. That lovely splash of yellow is a yellow prickly cockle. Cool. Again with the cockals, you got this between the prickliness and the bright colors. I do like them. Oh, rough scallop. I am a little bummed that it's a little black. You know what though? I think I'm going to hold on to that and use it as kind of like an experimental shell once I eventually get into trying to remove the black from the shells. That's just a piece of a Florida prickly Yeah. Love that salmon color. Bright. Bright. That's why I like them. Yes, they're pretty. More gorgeous clouds just kind of hanging there. I don't hear any thunder or anything. So just when I think of it, pop my head up and kind of take a peek. Okay, that's Florida prickly cockle. Yeah, nice and bright. Very common. And I cannot explain why. I just really like them. I again it's it's the the outside of them. I just imagine their their you know their protection is just being a little bit prickly. I just think it's kind of fun. Now I know I've been going on and on and I would like you to have the ability to appreciate this island. So, I'm going to be quiet for a little bit and give you some beach time. [Applause] a little orange kitten paw. So, the cats are kind of represented in shells between the kitten paw, the lion's paw, although there is a dogheaded triton. So, the canines are also represented. Okay, this is rough scallop. Yep. Awesome. Little kitten paw. Little orange rough scallop. Now, the rough scallop is missing one of its little oracles. His little little wings on the bottom. That is okay. Look at this jingle. I think that that's the biggest jingle I have ever seen. That is just massive. Why is it two colors? Don't know. I know why. It's orange day and it wanted to participate. Well, you're in. Jingle, you're in. Okay, that is a calico scallop. I do. Bright color. Lot of things that kind of been here, but that nice bright calico scallop caught my eye. All right, that is another rough scallop. And it is called that because the texture of the shell is actually rough. Although, if it obviously if it's been hanging around for a little while, it kind of gets worn down. You can't really see the roughness. That would Man, if those were like storm clouds, that would freak me out. I mean, like, they're storm clouds, but they're not going to start dumping rain on us. But I am kind of kind of being aware of what's going on. And as I had mentioned, I'm waiting for the tide to go out. So, unfortunately, it's just the way that it worked out. Once the tide gets really good, it's pretty much time for me to go. But it's okay. It is what it is. It's how I kind of planned my tour. I am lit still just happy to be on Shell Island with those gorgeous clouds. Now, fighting conchk, the juvenile fighting conchs when they're shaped like this. These are my favorite. It's kind of got it's like topheavy with a little spikiness. So, that's a juvenile fighting conchk. I see orange. I go to orange. All right. That's a rough scallop. Yeah, I think that that's just I don't think that that's the black. I think that's just got a little bit of slime. So, I think that that darkness can be fixed with some bleach. Okay, that is a slipper snail. And then we have some regularsized orange jingles. Oh, terrific. Everyone wanted to participate. Somebody No, you're going to have to participate. I'm sorry. You're coming with me. Now, I found this interesting. This is a Sunray Venus clam. And it looks like the ink kind of smeared like when the animal was creating its shell or the color on the shell. Yeah, it just it's different. And when you feel the shell, it did feel um damaged. So that's probably why it just kind of was created a little bit weird. This shell is a little discolored and that's why I'm like what is it? It's a white Atlantic semile. just because the color was a little off. Took me a minute, but the texture on the shell, they kind of it felt like one of the other ones, so I was able to figure it out. There's another colorful moon snail. No drill hole. Typically, they do not have drill holes. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. So, that goddess or colorful moon snail. That shell has two names. Now, this shell on the other hand, one name that is a buttercup lucine. It's not pristine. I likely won't keep it. This Okay, that's a true tulip. They're just not as common as the bandit tulip, so they're a little bit more desirable and they get bigger. They have brighter colors. True tulip. Ooh. All right. It's orange day. And this calico scallop wanted to participate. So, that's a calico scallop with this little burst pattern. Love it. Gorgeous. Oh, a chestnut turban. Look at Oh, cool pattern. Yeah, a little star pattern. Yep. Very cool. Yep, that works for me. That's a little chestnut turban. Okay, so for this, I was looking for a moon snail and ended up with this horsecock. So, Shelendippity did take place while I was here. And that's why I encourage you like check everything out. You never know what is going to maybe pop up instead. These kind of conditions where the surf is kind of like at those shells. My absolute favorite. I see a top snail here. And if you happen to get grabby and you wanted to kind of go through it, I didn't want to drop it into the water. So, I do this over the sand again. It's almost purple. Oh, that's cool. So, that's another one of those top snails or a worm snail. There were a lot of worm snails. I wouldn't be surprised at the end of the video. There wasn't a little pile of them. So, if you've never watched before, at the end of the video, I just kind of spread everything out and go through all the different things I managed to find today. Okay, guess there's going to be a couple of top snails, too. And that's okay. A juju bee top snail. It is way Okay, I'm happy to find any shells at this point. All right. Maybe other people have been here don't care for the top snail. Works for me. Oh, look at that. That's funny. A bruised NASA. Yeah. I I can't say I've ever pulled one out of those out of the surf. Yep. That is a little bruised NASA. And there is Yeah, that's a banded tulip. We're probably Yeah, we're not going to worry about that one. This one little bit of green. Nothing that bleach won't take care of. Clearly abandoned tulip. Nice distinct bands on that sea shell. Oh, wow. Oh, rough scallop. Very bummed about the black on this one. So, that's not just a bleach thing. That's going to have to go in hydrogen peroxide. I myself haven't done that whole process yet. One of these days I'll get there. One of these days. Hello, base scallop. Yep. You're awesome. Nice big pretty red red. They come sometimes in yellow. I don't get to see them like that. Now, this half naked penshell. I don't talk about the penshells a lot. They just don't appeal to me. But they do bury themselves in the sand. That pointy end kind of goes in the bottom. And then the pen shells are responsible for creating that mother of pearl or that naker that we can find down here. There it is. You can kind of see on the interior of that shell. Yep, there it is. So, this is a pen shell. Really more of a public service announcement because I don't collect them. But if you go to the beach and you see these things, they're all over the place. Very common. It's a pen shell. We have three different kinds. That is one of those white Atlantic summies. Again, I have never found more of that specific CC's than I have on that this particular day. They were just everywhere. Angel wing a clearly broken. I do like when they get bigger, they're nice and hardy. Whoa. Whoa. Oh, yeah. There's rain now. All right. stuff going on out there. This is a paper fig complete with a whole little ecosystem on top there. Some barnacles, a little bit of seaweed. So, yeah, that is a paper fig. When I I think paper fig, I think Santael. Santael just Oh, you can really tell that the tide was going out. Yep. All right. What kind of little treasures? All right. Little dusky cone. A little drill. Okay, so we have a couple of these. And these are actually three different little shells. Yep, that is a moth mouth. That is a Gulf oyster. And then we have the horse conchk. And it's funny, I'm going to lay them all out, one next to each other. And I get it. So that is a gulf oyster drill. That's a horse conchk. And that is a mothmouth drill. And they look similar, but they're not completely different species. And it just takes a little bit of time to kind of be able to tease them apart. That is a Tampa turid. How cool is that tiny little thing? That's almost like a fake lentil trap. I don't want to call it an impostor because I save it for the fly specif. But that is a little a little tamper turid. That is a living lightning welk. The black is the body. Cool, right? And even albino lightning welks. Yep. They're black, too. Their bodies are not like pink or any kind of any kind of color. What? Yeah, the weather is changing. Now we can really kind of see. Yeah, it's starting to get squirrelier and squirrelier, but again, my my lightning app has not gone off. So, let's let's let it rock. I mean, rain is rain. I don't care about getting wet. It's just the whole getting electrocuted thing I have a problem with. But for now, still safe. Nothing has nothing on my lightning app has gone off. So, I'm going to keep shelling. Oh, a Pennsylvania lucine. So, we had tal I kind of mentioned that there's like families of shells. That is a lucine. A Pennsylvania lucine with that big fat wrinkle on the side. That's just the way they that's how they roll. Rose petal telling. Yeah, it's looking a little dry. Probably been here. And they get a little more fragile just as they kind of deteriorate. But that is a rose petal talon. Oh. Oh, that's pretty. So that's an apple murix or phoonotus pom. That's a scientific name. Oh, that's great. So all of these shells will have a common name, which are the ones I'm mentioning, and then they'll have a scientific name. The common name of that is a purplish semile. And I personally have a problem with that cuz clearly it's not even the least bit purple, but that's just the way it is. So that's a purplish semiley. Oh. Oh, you are gorgeous. So that is going to be another rough scallop. It wanted to participate in orange day. By all means, you are awesome. Beautiful orange scallop. Now I made my way back over to where everybody was going to meet at the boat and everyone was already there. And I think with the weather, we were ready to scuaddle. So, Shell Island was totally cool to me. It was really, really fun. And yeah, there was a lot of weather. And on the way back, we absolutely got ringed on like a lot. But our spirits were really high. So, it was still a fantastic trip. Thank you so much, Shell Island. Now, the goodies. Yay. There's actually a couple things to talk about here. So there were a couple of those drills and then the lightning welks, the colorful moon snails, the gulf oyster drill and then there's some bay scallops. There was some Florida cones. There's one apple mir. There's some of those rough scallops. And then those are all the calico scallops. We also have a juvenile Atlantic giant cockal. We have some of those dark serifs, the fighting conchs, a juvenile and an adult. And then the white similes, a whole pile of worm snails, a couple different kinds, yellow jingles, yellow prickly cockals, and a spiny jewel box, nutmeg, fly specif, chestnut turban, broad cordita, slipper, bruised nasa, we have some Florida prickly cockals, the sunray venus clams, that massive jingle, the orange jingles, the kitten paw, some orange pieces cuz I like them. We have some Florida horse the uh top snails, there is a true tulip, some banded tulips, and those randos. And then my favorites were these. It was that purplish simile, that base scallop, the tamper turid, and that rose murix. So, it was really fun. I feel like the shells are kind of starting to show up again, which is fantastic. No promises that I'm not going to have any slim days coming up, but I feel like it is going to get a little bit better as the weeks go on. Patreons, I hope you know that these beach days aren't just about collecting shells. They're about sharing them. And thanks to your support, I get to do this. I get to bring a little piece of the shore to your screen every week. So, without you, this couldn't this couldn't happen. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I truly appreciate all that you do for me. All right, that's a little sneak peek of what we're going to see next week. It's going to be pretty darn fun. So, until then, I hope you have yourself a fantastic week and I'll see you again next Sunday.