Shelling on Vacation

One of the reasons we selected South Florida as a destination is because of Grace's hobby of collecting seashells. She has exhausted shell collecting in the gulf, and Skip pointed to Sanibel Island as one of the premiere shelling beaches in the world. Our plan was to stay on Marco Island, enjoy its nicer amenities, and then take a day trip to Sanibel for shelling. However, the locals quickly let us know that we would have the same shelling opportunities on Marco. We went to South Marco beach, more toward the furthermost tip of Florida and were rewarded with tons of shells. We encountered hundreds of live shells that had washed ashore and had a teachable moment about the responsibility of not collecting live shells.

We saw dozens of live mussels and several really large starfish (more than twice the size of my hand!), conch shells, as well as many, many other shells that were not known to me. Gracie has added a seashell reference book to her Christmas list so we are hoping to identify several of the unusual shells we saw.

While Grace and I collected shells, Lauren and George enjoyed climbing the rocks. Every now and then they would stop to help with shelling, but then they would encounter a live shell and flee the area.  Over the course of several days, Grace's shell collection grew exponentially. Although Skip kept encouraging us to curate the collection, she made it home with an impressive shell haul.