Florida Beachcombing

 

I now have 3 containers of seashells plus several items not in containers. I have done beachcombing at Hilton Head (South Carolina); Amelia Island (Florida), including Little Talbot Island State Park to the south; Gulf Shores (Alabama), with a side trip to Perdido, Florida; Sanibel Island; and several areas around New Smyrna Beach (Florida). The beach across from our condo in New Smyrna Beach was not a good shelling beach. Smyrna Dunes State Park and Canaveral National Seashores were better.

When you first start beachcombing, everything is new and exciting. Usually, you have little idea of what you collected. Now, I have a pretty good idea of what I pick up. I want to find new specimens; I want to find certain items like a cone shell or Scottish bonnet, neither of which I have.

I find it interesting that very different items predominate at the different beaches I have walked. Amelia Island had tons of cockles; Gulf Shores mostly coquinas; Sanibel at the time I was there mostly fighting conchs and pen shells. But Sanibel is a special case because of the way it is situated, and the finds there change with the tides and weather a lot. That is why it is a great place to beachcomb, especially in the winter after storms.

I do not care to join in the hunt for the perfect shell; I pick up pieces if they are colorful or an interesting shape. Still, I imagine it is a thrill to find a shell in great condition. I loved finding some olive shells with high glossy color at Smyrna Dunes.

The Bailey-Matthews National Seashell Museum showed me that there are places in this world that have spectacular shells. That does not ruin my enjoyment of United States beaches. Because I am not obsessed with finding treasures, I enjoy each piece I choose to possess.

The very last shell I picked up on this trip (at Canaveral National Seashores while walking to the parking lot), is a homely thing, but so different than what I already had. That one I had to research to identify. There was a certain satisfaction in ending my Florida stay with a new kind of shell. (Imperial venus clam).

We think we may take a Caribbean cruise next winter; my beachcombing days are probably coming to an end. Yet, if I should find myself at a beach in the future, I am sure I will not just lie in the sun. I will be out there eyes cast down to the sand.

While on Sanibel, a little boy around 7-8 years old showed me his find at Bowman’s Beach. His advice to me was “You gotta get in the muck.” I wear a pair of cheap canvas slip-on shoes from Kmart to protect my feet from sharp objects, but I don’t mind if they get wet or sandy. Heeding the advice, at Smyrna Dunes I was treading the area next to the waveline when suddenly I sank almost up to the top of my shoes. When I tried to get free, I sank even more, almost like quicksand. When I finally escaped, one of my shoes was still stuck in the muck. I had to retrieve it. I don’t think I am a muck person. How about you?

Here are most of the shells I collected during our recent trip to Florida. Starting with the little white plate at the upper left: lettered olives, sea urchin test, seaglass; going clockwise: turkey wings, pieces of shark’s eyes (a type of snail), possibly pieces of ram’s horn squid shells; beneath the turkey wings are broad-ribbed carditas and ceriths, to the right of those, the brown with white streaks is a bittersweet clam, the one with the deep grooves is an imperial venus clam (my last find) and I am not sure about the other two; the far right perimeter includes kittenpaws, spiny jewelboxes, and one auger; working back across the table to the left: slipper shells, the really big shells are quahogs, jingles, and banded tulips (mostly fragments), next to the plate a disc dosinia with both halves attached, angelwings and Campeche angelwings.

Under the quahogs, are lots of calico scallops. All the color variations and patterns fascinate me. There are orange calicos, but I think the little orange one may be a rough scallop because the ears are not quite symmetrical. The larger whitish shell at the edge of the scallops is a prickly cockle. Underneath the large array of scallops is an oystershell with a tiny bubble shell.

To the left of the oyster, are two cross-barred venus clams, pieces of whelks including one tiny whole lightning whelk (with the streaks), coquinas, calico clams, the white channeled duckclam, with two apple murexes. Above that are the Florida fighting conchs, including several juvenile ones. Whew! And there are many more specimens at Florida beaches that I do not have.

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 Other bits and pieces, including arks and whelks.

Lettered olives, scallops, a banded tulip, a kittenpaw, sea urchin test, seaglass.

I put some of the smaller shells inside big cockles to display. The round white shell in the right cockle is a baby’s ear I found in the beach hash (piles of broken up shells) on Amelia Island. The deeply grooved shell in the right cockle is the imperial venus clam.

Several large pieces and one almost whole whelk found at Little Talbot Island State Park several years ago flung ashore during an extremely windy gray day. We were going to eat a picnic lunch, but had to eat in the car.

Thanks for letting me share my shells. I learned a lot doing beachcombing and enjoyed walking the beaches. Maybe you will give it a try?

Florida Trip With Sanibel/Captiva Highlights

I rose early on my birthday January 26th so we could get on the road and head towards Florida. We ate our packed lunch in the car in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant in southern Indiana, then used its restroom facilities. The Hampton Inn in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was very nice, even had a manager's evening reception, but to celebrate my birthday we headed to a nearby Outback Steakhouse. After a steak, I shared with my husband a fudgy brownie topped with ice cream, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. Now it seemed like a birthday.

Our next night in Valdosta, Georgia, was fine, however, we had a big surprise the next morning. As we drove to get on the freeway, the entrance ramp was blocked by a police car, and the freeway traffic below was at a standstill in the southbound lanes as far as we could see. Fortunately I had a paper map with an inset of Valdosta. We ended up heading east toward the airport which was on a road that circled around again to the freeway further south. It worked! It was eerie though because we drove for several miles with no other cars behind us; finally in Florida a few cars entered I-75.

As we got closer to Fort Meyers, it began raining, and we had rain all the way to Tween Waters resort in Captiva, Florida. When we checked in, the clerk told us the electricity had just come back on, and her computer and key card system were not yet available. A young man in a golf cart escorted our car to the proper building and unlocked the room with a master key.

This resort has a long history. I can see why people might rent a cottage (for the week or month), but the motel facilities were not worth the price. Both Sanibel and Captiva cater to the wealthy, and that is reflected in rental rates and restaurant menu prices.

 

We drove to the village to get some supper. It was still raining and with no street lights it was hard to find a restaurant. We ate some clam chowder which was not very good, then crossed the street to a pricier place where we ate crème brulee and key lime pie. The desserts were scrumptious, and the restaurant staff treated us well even though we were not buying the $20 and up dinners. A musical group played under a canopy in the patio where no one sat since it was raining, but the dining room had doors and windows open to the patio so we could hear the music.

The free continental breakfast served in the Captiva House restaurant which was part of the resort included fresh fruit, juices, coffee, tea, cereal, and pastries. The pastries were baked at the resort and of excellent quality. The fresh squeezed orange juice was a treat.

After breakfast, we crossed the road to the resort’s beach.

I picked up a few shells including a Florida fighting conch. I tried to determine if what I saw was debris or part of a live animal. It looked kind of like a leaf, but I sure wasn’t game to touch it. I plopped it in my plastic bag, but when we got to our room I had some niggling doubts and put the shell on our screened-in balcony. After about 5 minutes, the mollusk emerged and rocked back and forth. The "leaf" was its foot. It is against the law to collect live specimens in Florida. We scooped up the conch in the plastic glass from the bathroom and returned it to the water, actually the lagoon which our room abutted.

Later, we headed to Bowman's Beach on the western part of Sanibel Island. The public beaches on Sanibel and Captiva Islands charge $4 an hour to park, but I was glad to beachcomb there. I found some empty conchs and collected other shells new to me. I saw the most beautiful shell I have ever seen lying in wet sand as low tide took place. It was a large spiral shell with squarish purple polka dots in bands on three-fourths and golden tan dots on the remaining turretted fourth. Though it had some resemblance to a junonia, the pictures I had seen had brown spots. Unfortunately for me, the shell was still occupied. We also picked up a large live horse conch as did many other people. The operculum (a hard "door" to protect the mollusk when out of water) was interesting. I finally decided after later internet searches that the beautiful shell probably was a junonia, the typical mahogany brown looking more purple in the specimen I saw.

This is not my photo and not the coloration I saw; the dots looked more purple. It laid with the aperture buried so had a skinnier look.

We ate lunch in Sanibel, then went to the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum.

They had a nice display of Florida specimens, but the spectacular shells came from the Indian Ocean and off of Australia and New Zealand. I don't see a trip to those places in my future. A movie about mollusks was interesting to view, seeing the siphons and other parts, means of propulsion, etc. Scallops have hundreds of eyes along the rim of the body. Some

mollusk babies look very different from the adults, but the conchs are miniatures of the parents.

Sailor’s valentines, the plaques seamen made from shells, whiling away time at sea, to give to their sweethearts at home were well represented.

I bought the illustrated book Florida’s Seashells : A Beachcomber’s Guide by Blair and Dawn Witherington at this museum.

I always find the flora in more tropical climates interesting, so different from the upper Midwest. I had to do some internet searching when back home to figure out what some of them are.

Coontie plant, sometimes called cardboard palm; a cycad.The seeds are toxic, but Seminole Indians used a leaching process to make the also-toxic roots into a flour.

On January 30th, we stopped at the Lighthouse Beach on the eastern end of Sanibel, near the causeway to the mainland. That beach had hundreds of fighting conchs which were obviously alive as they rocked about. I found a few shells, but I was not interested in the pen shells. This beach was quite smelly and unpleasant. We crossed the causeway headed east across Florida to our main stop, New Smyrna Beach.

Amelia Island

 

 

My husband and I spent the first 2 weeks of February on Amelia Island, Florida. We rented a 3 bedroom townhouse thru Home Away. We had hoped some family members would join us, but the two of us enjoyed pursuing our interests in a leisurely manner when they were unable to come. The rental was beautifully decorated and spacious and well-equipped, especially the kitchen. It was less than a 1/4 mile to Peter’s Point beach and a few blocks to many bike paths. The Preserve neighborhood was a pseudo-Mediterranean design. Though the units near us were unoccupied second homes, many had year-round residents. This wasn’t primarily a rental neighborhood.

   

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The duplex units had walled courtyards with some screened in. Ours was a quadplex.

 

What is now Amelia Island was claimed by Spain in 1513, but French Huguenots landed and settled 1562-1565. The Spanish massacred these settlers in 1565 to regain control. They called the island Isla de Santa Maria. They lost possession in 1763 to the British in the Treaty of Paris. Georgia’s governor James Oglethorpe in 1735 started calling the island Amelia after a daughter of George II even though Georgia did not have possession. The British formally called it Egmont when they took over in 1763. In 1783, as the Revolutionary War ended, the British were forced to return the island to Spain. British settlers had to pledge allegiance to Spain or leave. On March 17th, 1812 “Patriots of Amelia Island” an independent group of Americans seized control and raised their own flag. The next day they  ceded the island to the United States. However, under protest from Spain, the island returned to Spain. Then in 1817 a Scotsman Sir Gregor MacGregor ran the Spanish off and raised the “Green Cross of Florida”. He was assisted by a man who fought in the Mexican War and who, once MacGregor left, raised the Mexican flag at the fort. The United States stepped in to hold the island in trust for Spain; it became a U.S. territory on July 10, 1821. Subsequently, the Confederate flag flew for awhile. Thus, Amelia Island is known as the Isle of Eight Flags.

Fernandina Beach is the only town on Amelia Island. It takes up the northern and central part. The southern portion has many large resorts including Ritz Carlton and Omni Plantation which are beachside. American Beach near the southern tip was originally a community of cottages owned and rented by black Americans who were segregated out of the predominantly white areas. The town’s golden age was 1870 to 1910 when wealthy Northerners built Victorian homes to get away from harsh winters. When Henry Flagler built a rail line to St. Augustine and other Florida coastal towns, Amelia was bypassed. It had a revival with wood pulp factories which still make containers, particle board, etc. and was a leading shrimping area for many years, but imported shrimp has decimated that industry. With a causeway to the mainland, residents can easily work off the island though. Tourism is now a main draw.

The oldest continuously operated bar in Florida.

 

This house was used in  the Pippi Longstocking movie.

 

U.S. Post Office

 

 

 

At the northside marina.

We walked a greenway trail in Fernandina Beach one morning.

 

I was disappointed when the farmers market at Omni Plantation that advertised shrimp from nearby Mayport would be available cancelled because of forecasted rain. We did go to a different farmers market in town where we bought some local zucchini and artisan bread. We had stopped at the Atlantic Seafood Company at the dock on the Amelia River earlier in our trip and knew they had shrimp. An advantage to buying there was that for a small fee they removed the veins and shells. I also bought a spice packet there to use in cooking the shrimp.

It tasted delicious.

We had a good laugh, too. The spices had turned the cooking water red and cloudy. My husband used tongs to retrieve the shrimp. But he twice decided to check while eating dinner to see if there were some he had missed because they were so good he wanted more. Yep. It was like miraculous shrimp that kept appearing each time he dipped into the pot.

We would highly recommend the Amelia River Cruise. It takes you around to see Fort Clinch, then cruises near Cumberland Island. We saw some dolphins. Cumberland Island is part of Georgia, yet it is a few miles from Amelia Island. On this cruise you see the ruins of Dungeness, a large mansion built by Lucy Carnegie. The Carnegies owned most of the island at one time. She had thorough blood horses brought there which now have multiplied and roam wild. We could see some of them in the distance from the boat, but you don’t really get very close. The day of the cruise was our warmest during our stay with 79 degrees.

 

Fort Clinch

I had thought about going to Saint Augustine, about an hour south, but we had already taken the carriage tour there several years ago, and the rest of the town requires a lot of walking which I was reluctant to do while still recovering from foot surgery. We did, however, go northwest to Okefenokee swamp. We took a 90-minute boat tour. My hubby claims we saw 15 alligators; I didn’t keep count, but often all you saw was a pair of eyes above water level. I was surprised that the large expanses of swamp are called prairies. There are clumps of vegetation throughout, some large enough to support a man, some growing into islands. Okefenokee means trembling earth. All of these clumps are rooted and do tremble in the water. The black water mirrors the vegetation. Lots of birds such as ibis flying overhead.

 

 

My husband spent time biking on Amelia Island while I did several beachcombing outings. I was pleased to find some shells quite different from what we gathered on Hilton Head. My favorite shell from last year was a rosy-lined cockle, the only one of its kind. On Amelia, these cockles were one of the most common shells and 4 or 5 times larger than the Hilton Head specimen. I ended up with some terrific whelk pieces, a whole whelk found by my husband, augers, barnacles, angel wings, and sea pens, most of which I had not seen on Hilton Head. The townhouse we rented had a very nice book about Florida beachcombing which helped me identify my finds. I also found two pieces of sea glass, but no fossilized shark’s teeth which people do hunt. The online picture index I used last year also was helpful.

 

On February 13th, the full moon reflected on the Atlantic ocean was gorgeous. Not to be outdone, the sun gave us a spectacular sunset on February 14th. We ate at Brett’s next to the docks for our Valentine’s lunch (mahi mahi with shrimp) and decided to return to the docks around sunset when the waitress confirmed that there were often lovely sunsets over the Amelia River. We were not disappointed. This was our last evening on Amelia Island and it ended delightfully.

Brett’s where we lunched.

 

About 30 minutes prior to sunset.

Getting lower in the west.

The northside of the docks bathed in the evening light.

 

The perfect ending to our Amelia Island stay.