Tag: spoil islands

Shells Found on a Deserted Beach

Found lots of knobbed whelks on this deserted island beach in Mosquito Lagoon. And a few other pretty shells.

A Trip by Water

I wrote a post about our trip down to this island on a previous post, “A Beach All Our Own”.

Now I want to share some photos of the shells we found on this deserted beach.

The water was very clear right near shore. The darker part is where the grass is growing.

Warm water, but creepy grass – I didn’t swim
Beachcombing the rocky shoreline

The Island Beach

We, my son, daughter and me, visited this Spoil Island in October, after Hurricane Ian, which hit our area the end of September. It is likely that many of the shells we saw had been uncovered by the waves. The beach erosion, and tree in the water, was most likely from that storm.

Mosquito Lagoon island
Spoil island along the ICW
Everywhere the water is very shallow

Shells We Found

I’ve never found so many knobbed whelks in one place. In fact, I rarely find knobbed whelks on our normal boating trips. But this island had many. None were in perfect condition, but they were also empty, so I collected a few.

There were hermit crabs on this island. The crown conch and tulip shell (pictured below) both contained hermits, so I got photos and left them alone. A hermit crab would need to be quite large to live in, and carry, a heavy knobbed whelk shell.

The angel wing shell is encrusted with hard sand that doesn’t come off. Quite a few of the shells and pieces are a pretty pink-orange color, and a few were yellow.

knobbed whelk
Knobbed whelk
Knobbed whelk spire
Spire
knobbed whelk inside
Crown conch
knobbed whelks
Knobbed whelks
lightning whelk
Lightning whelks
shark’s eye seashells
Array of colorful shark’s eye shells
banded tulip shell
Banded Tulip
angel wing seashell
Angel wing
seashells
Holes in shells are made by predators.

The two gray scallop shells are very interesting as they differ in appearance.

Finding the Creepy Face

My daughter was beach combing at the front of the islands on the rocks, and called me over. As she went to hand the shell (face) to me, it fell on the ground. Because she dropped it, we thought it didn’t want to come with us. I brought it home anyway and it’s in my garden. I was going to sneak it into her suitcase to creep her out when she got home and unpacked. But I like it too much and wanted to keep it. The Face is now watching over my raised bed garden.

face in a shell
The creepy face
Shell collection on boat
Shells on the boat
broken whelk piece in water
Piece of a large whelk at the shore
mossy knobbed whelk
Moss covered knobbed whelk
Facing the mainland

Thanks for reading!

A Beach All Our Own

Took a boat trip to the lagoon and explored one of the Spoil Islands where we found some awesome whelk shells.

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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