Shelling on the Florida Gulf Coast in January

In early January of this year (2015), I was finally able to make a trip I've been thinking of since childhood - a trip to the beaches of Florida for shelling. We focused on the Gulf Coast, choosing a motel that served as home base in Englewood, Florida (which is a little bit north of Fort Myers).

Florida has a lot of excellent State Parks and other well-maintained natural areas along the Gulf Coast. No live shelling is allowed in the state parks, and other localities restrict live shelling as well, such as Sanibel Island. If one arrives before low tide, one has a chance to still find many nice specimens of empty shells in these localities. The competition is pretty fierce, though, and the beaches quickly fill up with eager bag-toting shellers!

Day One: We explored a bit in the Englewood area in the afternoon (after a red-eye flight from San Diego the night before!). Manasota Key has nice gulf-facing beaches, but also has public access to Lemon Bay, which is sandwiched between the key and the mainland. One can explore the shallow water near the mangroves on the bay side, and many interesting mollusks can be found here. The light was failing when we explored the bay side on this day, but immature Florida crown conchs were "hanging out" on the muddy beach and in the shallow water. One appeared to be feeding on a mysterious object that might have been an old octopus's arm.

Melongena corona, an immature Florida Crown Conch. Manasota Key, Florida.

Melongena corona, Florida Crown Conch, feeding. Manasota Key, Florida.

Lightning whelks were common on the bay side as well, some feeding on the numerous oysters that are thick at the base of the mangroves.

Busycon sinistrum, Lightning Whelk, eating an oyster among the mangroves. Manasota Key, Florida.

Day Two: This was our Sanibel Island day, but we unwisely got a slightly late start in the morning and arrived at Lighthouse Beach on Sanibel about 10 minutes past the peak low tide (which was around 8:30 am). At that point the hoards of shellers who got there earlier had scooped up most of the easy-to-find empty shells. There were many live mollusks on the sand bars exposed by low tide, though, so I focused on photography of them, as opposed to collecting.

Bulla striata, live Atlantic Bubbles. Lighthouse Beach, Sanibel Island, Florida.

An immature Florida Fighting Conch. There were lots of immature ones on this beach, but we never saw adults ones here at all.

Oliva sayana, Lettered Olive. This one is burrowing in the sand at low tide. Lighthouse Beach, Sanibel Island, Florida.

Live Lettered Olives, Lighthouse Beach, Sanibel Island., Florida.

Live Nassarius vibex, Bruised Nassa. A little guy - crawling on the sand as the tide came in. Lighthouse Beach, Sanibel Island, Florida.

A colorful live Ficus ficus, Paper Fig Shell. On a sand bar, Lighthouse Beach, Sanibel Island, Florida.

Terebra dislocata, Eastern Auger. There were many immature ones burrowing in the sand at Lighthouse Beach.

Before leaving Sanibel, we paid a visit to Gulfside Park and its adjacent beach. I brought snorkeling equipment and decided to give it a shot at this beach, but the water was so turbid that visibility was essentially zero. The beach itself was littered with Rigid Pen Shells, most in fairly poor condition. Sea whips had washed up, but none with simnias attached. Ponderous arks were scattered along the wrack line, also, which are extremely common in Florida, but I was happy to scoop up some with both valves intact and the mossy periostracum present.

We left Sanibel in the early afternoon, as I wanted to explore Manasota Key in the daylight more. We had several hours to do just that, and found a large banded tulip, more lightning whelks and Florida crown conchs on the bay side.

Cinctura hunteri, Banded Tulip, Manasota Key, Florida.

Busycon sinistrum, Lightning Whelk. A younger individual, with more distinct markings. Manasota Key, Florida.

An older Lightning Whelk, from Manasota Key, as well.

Day Three:

On this day we planned to drive around two hours south of Englewood to Marco Island, and then explore the Big Cypress National Preserve (with birding, not shelling in mind!).

This time we wisely arrived at Tigertail Beach on Marco Island around an hour before low tide. A cold weather system had moved into Florida, and it was in the low fifties (and windy) when we arrived at the public beach parking area. This is not a huge parking lot so arriving early is wise for many reasons. We had carefully looked at satellite images of this area in advance, and also had heard that one could wade across a shallow lagoon to get fast access to the gulf-side beach. That lagoon was not so shallow and after my husband Gary quickly was up to his thighs, with what looked like deeper water ahead, we decided to take the alternate route to the beach, by hiking south and around the lagoon, then hitting the beach on the southern end. I'm glad we did, as the beach, and especially the sandbars, exposed by low tide, were very rich in empty shells. By the way, although this is not a state park, there are signs all over stating "No Live Shelling" at Tigertail Beach, so be forewarned. The empty shells were excellent, though, and my best shelling of the trip happened here, as we hiked north towards the northwest corner of the island.

Scaphella junonia, a slightly worn specimen, in a little tidal "pond". Tigertail Beach, Marco Island, Florida.

Dinocardium robustum, Atlantic Giant Cockle. This species can reach 5 inches in length, and there were many of this size on Tigertail Beach. This was burrowing in the sand (a popular activity for mollusks on the beach!).

A "colony" of Florida Fighting Conchs, Marco Island, Florida. There were many groups like this, revealed by low tide, with easily a dozen or more live conchs per group. 

A nice mature, live Strombus alatus, Florida Fighting Conch. Tigertail Beach, Marco Island, Florida.

A good-sized, empty Sunray Venus from Marco Island.

Triplofusus giganteus, Florida Horse Conch. This is a shell that shellers always hope to find, so I feel VERY lucky to have spotted this big 10.5 inch long one on a sandbar at low tide, before the crowds descended. Tigertail Beach, Marco Island, Florida.

Day Four:

My brother lives in Pinellas Park near St. Petersburg, so we decided to make the most of the shelling in that area, since we wouldn't meet up with him until 5 pm.

My brother Malcolm, who has lived in the Tampa bay area for many, many years, recommended Fort De Soto State Park for birding (which was another goal of the trip) and Honeymoon Island for shelling. In the end, after spending about an hour early in the morning at Pass-a-Grille Beach with its small breakwater (which had captured some nice shells, including an empty but intact Dinocardium robustum with both valves) we spent the entire morning and early afternoon at Fort De Soto SP, as it was good for shelling and birding. Honeymoon Island (which is also a state park) will have to wait for the next trip! The shelling along the wrack line seemed to get richer and richer as we hiked north long the north-south gulf-facing portion of the park. We met another (local) sheller who confirmed that this pattern is not random, but that many intact shells tend to get caught on that northernmost point. Once we rounded the northern tip and entered the bayside, the shells tapered off, but the bay side had nice empty shells of its own.

Haminoea antillarum, Antilles Glass Bubble. These delicate little things were in the muddy wrack line on the bay side at Fort De Soto State Park. They were empty (except for mud). They cleaned up nicely!

Day Five:

This had to be a fairly short day as we would be getting up well before dawn the next day to fly back to San Diego. So we explored Stump Pass State Park, which is at the south end of Manasota Key (close to our motel). The beaches yielded similar empty shells to what we had seen elsewhere previously, but the richness of shells increased as we walked south to the small channel at the south end of Manasota Key. Right at the channel, where water was rushing out towards the gulf, some pelicans were fishing just a couple feet from the shore, and then we saw a shark join the pelicans in the fishing there! This drove home the reality that snorkeling in the Gulf should be done with caution, and an understanding of the creatures you are swimming with! This particular day seemed to be the coldest one yet, and we were bundled in multiple layers, so I was not even considering getting in the water, but still - the shark was an interesting wake-up call!

Donax variabilis, the "Coquina", a super-variably-colored (so aptly named) little bivalve. This yellow one was at Stump Pass State Park, Florida.

Shelling in the chilly weather on the last day, Stump Pass State Park, Florida.

If I had to do this trip over some time, I think I would try to plan a slightly longer stay. Five days (or more accurately, four-and-a-half), especially with traveling as widely as we did, did not make for the most relaxing experience! Something else that was driven home by this trip, is that it's critical to arrive at beaches early in the day, and before low tide, especially at well-visited beaches. I'm glad that we decided to visit a variety of places, though, as originally I had planned to stay at Sanibel Island almost exclusively. I also did not leave enough room in my luggage for shells. I could have mailed some of the shells home, but decided instead to mail my snorkeling gear (which got almost no use) instead. This opened up room in my bags for my carefully-wrapped shells (with temporary data labels), which took up even more space than I thought they would! I ended up buying Ziploc bags, paper towels for padding and some inexpensive plastic food storage containers for the shells for the return trip. Englewood has grocery stores that are very convenient for such purchases.

Now the fun of cleaning, organizing, properly labeling and storing my finds from this trip begins!