Tag: beach combing

A Beach All Our Own

Took a boat trip to the lagoon and explored one of the Spoil Islands.

A boating trip south to the lagoon brought us to an island we had all to ourselves. My daughter came for a visit in November and we took a boat ride, with my son, to explore the islands.

island beach Mosquito Lagoon
Spoil island beach
Island beach, water and palm trees

If you Google Florida’s spoil islands, the links that come up have mostly to do with the islands made further south. Those islands have camping and are kept up for visitor. We were in the northern tip of the lagoon. In general the “spoil” islands were mostly manmade by dredging the ICW canal so large ships could pass through. The coquina rock chunks were piled up to create islands which are now filled with palm trees and vegetation. This is my understanding.

This area is very shallow, and you can only access these islands with a boat that has a low draft. We are not used to dealing with “rocks” and had to be careful as we approached the shore. These coquina rocks are made up of shells and sediment that are all tightly compacted.

A Whelk Unearthed

On the rocky beach side of this island I came across the pointed end of this whelk sticking up out of the sand. When I pulled, the smooth, worn, knobbed whelk shell came up.

worn end of whelk shell
Shell part sticking out of sand!
shell found buried

Beach Erosion, From Hurricane Ian?

Hurricane Ian passed over this area the end of September (2022) and I am guessing that the erosion seen here was due to that storm. Hurricane Nicole didn’t come until November 10th, which was only a few days after this trip. Nicole was worse for the coast, so I’m sure more of this island beach was washed away. Hope we can go back soon. The wind and waves from hurricanes can wash up – or wash away to expose – some interesting things. In Daytona Beach Shores they are excavating a shipwreck that has appeared along the beach, and is believed to be from the 1800s.

Windy days have kept us off the water – that, and the fact that it’s just a busy time of year. I took a short video for the full effect of being on this beach.

Yes, many of the shells had hermit crabs inside, but the big whelks did not.

shells with hermit crabs
Hermit crabs in all three shells
broken whelk
Coquina rocks & broken whelks
bleached lightning whelk shell
This bleached lightning whelk was just so pretty
Beachcombing
beautiful knobbed whelk
A beautiful whelk!

The water was still quite warm – around 78 degrees – and my daughter took a swim and did some snorkeling. I saw stingrays hiding in that grass and it kept me on dry land!

We spent a few hours walking around the beach area, then boated to another island and headed home. hadn’t seen my daughter in nearly two years, so it was a really nice week with her. The day she arrived we (along with my son) headed to Flagler Ave. for an evening beach walk. Every day was spent on or in the water!

Me and my kids
Snorkeling

I’ll be writing more about the shells we found here on my next post.

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Beach-combing Again in Florida

shells found at beach
Sea Treasures

As a celebration of my moving back to Florida recently, we went to the beach yesterday! How sweet is was to float in the warm ocean water again. And of course I had to search for seashells. The central east coast is not known for it’s abundance of seashells, but I did find a few to take home with me.

After the move, from the northeast to the south, most of my things are in storage – including my old seashell collection. That means I have to begin a new one! So here I go – beginning with a piece of a large sand dollar and a shiny Sawtooth pen shell.

I also found many arks, which are able to survive the rough surf because of their thick shells. In fact I think the ark is the most often found bivalve on the east coast beach I visit. Everything I found yesterday was a bivalve (shells with two halves), with the exception of the piece of sand dollar.

Now that I am able to go out and collect seashells much more frequently, I will study them closer and try to determine exactly what I have. Many types of shells look very similar, yet have different names.

Today I learned that the Incongruous ark (Anadara brasiliana) can be recognized by the dashes that appear across each section of their ribs.

Incongruous ark shells
Incongruous ark shells

As you can see (hopefully) in my photo above, the ribs running along the shell are not smooth, but bumpy.

To identify seashells, sometimes a close inspection is needed. At first glance, most of the shells I found looked all the same. A good identification book will show pictures from the top and bottom of the shell and give a description about how to tell shells apart.

It helps to know seashell identification terminology too. Words like “umbo”, “teeth”, “apex” and other anatomy of a mollusk.

By the way, I managed to find a couple of Common jingle shells yesterday also! That was exciting.

If I Was On The Beach Today

screen-shot-2017-02-17-at-5-30-16-pm(This post was written while I was living in New Hampshire. Eventually I moved back to Florida, but for a time this was only a dream.)

If I was walking along the beach today I would be looking much more intently at the treasures beneath my feet than I did twenty years ago.  Shelling and beach-combing has taken on a new meaning for me now.

Going to the beach was a regular activity years ago, as I lived only thirty minutes away. I’ve never been lucky enough to live on the beach but in Florida you are always fairly close to a beach of some kind. And like so many things we get used to, we don’t appreciate it nearly enough.
beach walking
In my beach-walking dream it would be low tide – and hopefully that timing would coincide with few visitors to the area so I’d have the place mostly to myself. With a stick or piece of driftwood in hand, I would check the seaweed washed up along the water line for hidden goodies caught there.

With my pants rolled up I’d shuffle through the soft sand near the surf, peering out into the water looking for signs of any sea life just off shore.

Maybe I’d find some seashells like the ones pictured, or maybe I’d find something more interesting and beautiful – like a living whelk or dried up sand dollar. I only know that I would be looking more closely knowing that it was not an activity I can do all the time any longer.

If you are walking on the beach today, enjoy every moment and happy treasure hunting!

(Photos courtesy of Pixabay.)