I went shelling with beachcombing author Dr Ashley Oliphant

Being a content creator does give me some opportunities that I get really jazzed about. Sometimes I get invited to go on cool trips and sometimes I get to meet someone I really wanted to connect with. This past weekend, I was able to meet up with Dr. Ashley Oliphant and get to know her a little better as we spent some time together on the beach looking for treasures. Now first, if you haven't done so already, please consider buying her most recent book. Yes, she's written seven already and she's working on another one, but The Ultimate Shell Seeker's Guide is such a great book from an extremely experienced beachcomber and it's available online. Just google the title, it's all over the place Now, as you know, my main method of communication is normally in video form, but Ashley is a retired English professor, so her method of sharing is writing, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on her book and get another perspective on shelling as well as tips and tricks from another sheller. She very well may have awoken the seed bean hunter in me, but time is just going to have to tell Now, Ashley has been on the beach since she was a kid and has been learning about shelling, shark tooth hunting, as well as sea bean hunting. And now I'm going to share a little bit of our conversation that we had over on Bunch Beach. The first question I asked Ashley was, what has been your favorite part and the most rewarding aspect of writing this book and going to talk to people? I think finding friends. Um, it, it's brought me into such different communities than I would have gone into otherwise. Um, I've met experts that know such different things than I do. And, um, I have learned by writing the book and putting myself out there and hitting the road, I'm still learning from people who sort of come into my orbit because I've written I've written a book, and I love the... The show hunting community because there is such vast knowledge from so many different angles and I think for me that's been the most rewarding thing. I think sort of the second thing too is the number of kiddos that that I get to meet and hopefully what I do sparks them to want to go to the beach more often to pay more attention to the environment. My opinion My belief is that we all need to do more to allow them opportunity to fall in love with the ocean because it's going to be theirs to take care of very shortly. And if we don't do that, we're going to shortchange future generations. I was talking to... um debbie the other day about my feelings about paid beach parking particularly exorbitantly expensive paid beach parking um and every time i pull into a lot where it's you know five dollars an hour ten dollars an hour or more um it always hurts my heart because I recognize how many families can't afford that and how many future paleontologists, marine biologists, environmental activists who are going to be prohibited from access. Yes. And I just feel very strongly that we should at least offer free times so that families who want access can have it and may not be able to afford it otherwise. We chatted a little more about this and what could be done. While keeping the beach clean and having amenities is important, Ashley did have some ideas. We can have those things if you can maybe have, you know, seven to nine in the morning where you don't have to pay or four to six in the evening when you don't have to pay. They can make it work. Yeah, I know they can. That sounds wonderful. Yeah, and one great thing, there's a program that I know that is happening, is that many libraries now are putting state park passes in their collections that families can check out for free, which is an amazing development. I'm very, very happy that that's happening. Oh, that's wonderful. We also talked about how we preserve our love for the beach and hunting and turns out we share the ability to always have something to look forward to finding. I hunted for 10 really active years for a Genonia. I was on the trail and when I It was very exciting, like I liked the chase, but then once I found one, which was several years ago, South Lido is where I found my first one. You always remember your first. Yeah, you do. And I've found a couple of them since then, not in such good shape, but I've found a couple of them since then. But, um... But... The feeling of like of the hunt is now over and I thought an awful lot about that and how I don't want to lose the excitement, the fervor for it and it's something that I think very experienced shellers need to consider and what I've been able to do is sort of transition that excitement to my hunt for the next things we were talking earlier about. My desire for a paper nautilus and that's it's one of the beauties of the hobby too. Once you find the rare thing there's always another rare thing that comes behind it. It is and that's for for me what I've discovered like I like I still want to find an albino olive. I want to find a doghead triton. I want to find so there's so many like you said you found that one thing what's there's there's so many there's what is something that Maybe you typically don't talk about from a shelling standpoint or finding beans or shark teeth that you would want people to know. Yeah, that's a very good question. I think the best answer is that one of the reasons I do what I do is because when I am out on a beach such as this one, but especially when I'm out hunting at night, I find a level of peace that I've not been able to find anywhere else. And as I have aged and realized how important those moments are to just being a balanced human being, the more I appreciate the times that I have to myself. And I do, I should talk about it more because we especially need to teach our kids. How to regulate their own bodies, how to know when they need sunshine, to know when they need fresh air, to recognize when a walk will fix a lot of things that seem too big. Thank you. So peace, there's peace in walking the beaches and a peace that I can't find anything like it anywhere else. And so go out and walk. Be by yourself. Give your inner voice time to speak up. So many people don't listen to it. There are many people that cross our paths in life and while I really got to enjoy being the fangirl, Dr. Ashley was truly a human that makes my soul smile. It was obvious that we had a lot in common and our approach to life had a lot of overlap as well. And it was wonderful to spend time with someone who also took a passion and turned it into a career. I know you've gotten to know me because of the videos I make, but I hope this helps you get to know her a little better. And you too can meet her at one of her many upcoming book signing and speaking events. So make sure you grab the copy of her book and bring it to one of her events. I'm sure she will be happy to sign it for you. And you can get a whole new perspective on what makes the shelling thing so dang fun. I want to say thank you to Dr. Ashley Oliphant for being a super human and sharing all her incredible knowledge. And thank you for watching. I'll have a new beachcombing adventure coming this Sunday.