Spring Break in Sanibel - The Shells

Sanibel beaches are world-famous for shelling. And that was a general theme for our vacation. It was all about collecting shells. The hunt can be quite addicting!

The beaches are strewn with shells...

And in addition to collecting - we made shell creations.  Cate made a little girl out of shells.

We made a fish

We didn't make this creation but I thought it was cool.  That is a lightning whelk egg casing on the stick.  More about those later...

And of course we made our fair share of sand castles...

Decorated with shells of course!

We tried to research when and where to find the best shells and watched the tide charts for low tide.  Wes and I attempted a trip to the beach at 1:00 am and found nothing.  The next morning Wes and the kids went at 4:30 am and hit the jackpot.  This was their loot.

You can see the shell identification chart.  By the end of the trip these kids know the names of every single one of these shells.

Lightening Whelks, Fighting Florida Conches, Lettered Olives, Banded Tulips, and Shark Eyes are just some of the names of these beautiful shells.

This picture was taken right after Sarah told us that she swallowed a shell.  Yep - she put a small shell in her mouth and accidentally swallowed it.  Silly girl!

The grand total of all the shells discovered

All of these shells once were homes to mollusks. 

And we thought it would only be appropriate to visit the shell museum.  It was very interesting since we all had shells on the brain!

Want a shell?  We came home with A LOT of shells.  Now...how to display them...?