We intended on packing up to go home on Friday, go to the Sanibel Luminary Friday night and leave very early Saturday. We had discussed the possibility of staying an extra day to catch the Lowest tide at Sunrise Saturday morning and going to the Captiva Luminary and golf cart parade, this would mean Hubby would have to take an extra day off from work on Monday. Hubby came up with an idea that would give us the best of everything....stay and shell the low tide, Saturday morning and leave afterwards. Kinda like getting an extra day! We can save the Captiva Luminary and parade for another time!! I feel like we got a bonus!! It was a BEAUTIFUL morning!
Notice the dolphin near the horizon....how about that for a photo opportunity?! I wasn't sure I timed it right but I got it!!!
This was another day of minis! So many beautiful minis!! See for yourself...if you click these 2 pics you can do some Cybershelling of your own!!
We shelled for a couple of hours and just thoroughly enjoyed our extra time! We got back home, ate our apple fritters for breakfast while I cleaned up the shells and still were able to get on the road a little after 10:00! Kind of like getting a bonus!! :D I didn't take the time to lay everything out in order, but did snap some pics of our loot with my phone! LOTS of minis!!
Mini Olives , double jewel boxes, a wentletrap, juvie fighting conchs
Mini paper fig (center), turbans, olvies, lightning whelks
The beauty of having our own place was these will be waiting for me to finish cleaning up when we get down on our next trip! It looked like it was going to be another wonderful day!
I hope you enjoyed our Christmas trip because we sure did! Now back to REAL life! :) We watched the temperature drop as we headed up north....we started out at 73 degrees and it was 41 when we arrived home! Hubby made the whole trip in his shorts.....with a jacket, I changed to long pants in Jacksonville, but kept the flip flops on until I got home!! Now it's back to the fuzzy slippers!! :) ::Hugs::
We headed out yesterday evening to Sanibel for an early dinner and a good parking place for the Luminary festival. As it happened last year, my pics aren't great because it's so difficult to get a clear pic of Christmas lights at night...especially traveling on a trolley going down the road! I picked the best of the rest...So bear with me! At Luminary on Sanibel (Rotary club places the bags, Kiwannis lights them, and the Lions Club picks them up at the end of the night) bags with candles are placed straight down Periwinkle, from Bailey's to Pinocchios, and they offer 3 shuttle routes to cover the areas. One route is a loop from Baileys to Tahitian gardens with a stop at Periwinkle place. The second route is a loop from Periwinkle to Jerry's. The third route is a loop from Jerry's to Pinocchios and back. ..Many shops along these routes offer free food, snacks, a craft show at the schoolhouse, some sort of entertainment at most places, and Santa travels the routes from place to place in a fire truck...and there lots of twinkling lights and decorations. This is our second year!
We started at Bailey's....
Bailey's Plaza
Santa at Baileys'
Some of Tahitian Gardens lights
Our favorite Trolley and driver....
Full Moon over Tahitian Gardens
Closeup of the full moon
Nativity at Jerry's
Jerry's
Church next to Jerry's ....offers a live nativity, choral groups, snacks and a "Walk down a street in Bethlehem" I HIGHLY recommend this stop....it has a little bit of a line but it is worth it!! Awesome!
Inside decorations in one of the trolleys
We decided to walk back to Bailey's from Tahitian and I was able to get some better pics and a couple of videos!
Island Cow
Luminaries leading into Tahitian
Flamingo sleigh outside Greenhouse Cafe
This Robogirl was outside of Island Cow....she was on stilts!
One area of the bike path was completely covered with these twinkling lights...the whole area glowed....it was awesome!!
It was a beautiful night and it was a great walk....Last year we really enjoyed it because the trolley from Jerry's to Pinocchios was driven by a lively fellow who sang Elvis' Blue Christmas among others, and we sang in the open air all the way down and back! It was a blast...this year was a little disappointing...we were in an enclosed trolley no Christmas music and we couldn't see very well....Oh well! It was fun anyway!!
I would suggest you ride at least one trolley, but walk a lot to take it all in!!....And you may not want to eat first....we were too full from dinner to try anything!!
We had been talking about staying another day since Saturday Morn was the lowest tide of the week (full moon) and it was at 7:00....but that would mean Hubby would have to take another day of leave from work....We decided to stay, just for the morning to catch the low tide and leave after a couple of hours on the beach!!! Woohoo....so I have one more shelling post for you!! Stay Tuned!!
I have always heard that every day is different at the beach, and Sanibel continues to verify that for us. It was very cloudy, and looked pretty threatening when we got there at sunrise this morning.
Look closely and you will barely see the sunrise....just a little pink on the horizon.
The wind picked up, and it even rained on us a little bit. We found some minis but nothing like yesterday. There was a constant chop in the water so it was pretty cloudy. We did find this guy high and dry, and assisted him back into the gulf....
After a while, we began to get a little chilly and wet.....Not like up North, but chilly for here! :) As we were heading back, we noticed that as the tide came in and the waves washed up, it was uncovering some pockets of shells.....we had to contend with the waves, but we just let them help wash out the pockets! It's back breaking after a while, but just another way to hunt for treasures! I had noticed that people were coming pretty close and picking up things, and that bothers me a little sometimes. Hubby and I were probably six feet apart from each other....I found half of a beautiful alphabet cone, parts of true tulips, and we were getting sharks eyes, double jewel boxes, murexes....Hubby even found a piece of Junonia....it was a lot of fun....for a while...
Then this lady came up with a digger spade about 4 or 5 feet away from me....and continued getting closer and closer....she would dig, then scoop and 2 others with her would go through the scoop.....she finally got within a foot or so, and that was too much in my bubble so I moved to her other side.....I wasn't find anything so I moved to the other side of Hubby, and one of the people with her stood right beside me!! Maybe I'm too sensitive, but I thought that was rude!! I finally just left to avoid saying anything....my moment was spoiled by now anyway... Hubby stayed for a little longer, but she moved in on him also, so he just told her she could have it and how rude she was! Am I wrong? It's a huge beach, do we have to stand cheek to cheek to shell?? Maybe I'm just too sensitive.... We ended up doing pretty well, and the clouds started to break about the time we headed home, but it did still rain a little on the way.
Here is today's catch! Not bad at all....
More double jewel boxes, both sides of a small cockle, and some mini Lightning whelks
Coral, olives ,a mussel, and of course the juvenile fighting conchs
Sharks eyes, worm shells, barnacles and a piece of a junonia!!
Hubby got a pretty lace murex to go with his Junonia piece too!!
We are heading back out to Sanibel for Dinner and Luminary night! I hope to have some awesome pics to share with you for Part 2!! Stay tuned! ::Hugs::
I have a confession to make....I overslept yesterday so we didn't go out at sunrise! So I spent yesterday doing some more shopping....This sure doesn't look like December 3rd where I am from....how about you??
This truly is paradise! I did go to Bunche Beach here in Fort Myers for an hour and had a little bit of luck...
...a couple of Kings Crowns!
These are mostly shells from the day before....with a few scallops we picked up this morning...
Today however, we did get up and got out to Gulfside park just before sunrise....it was so beautiful and very calm!!
...It was mini heaven....you could walk out and see in the clear calm water...We both had so much fun....and boy did we find the minis!
Hubby said he was in the water just picking up one thing after another and this Alphabet cone rolled up next to him!! It's not perfect, but they have been pretty scarce for us this year!!
It was amazing how much was out there, there were still some sea squirts rolling around, but there were minis everywhere....in the water, on the beach, high tide line...just everywhere!
See for yourself!
Hubby hit the jackpot with Olives and Mini horse conchs....
I did pretty well with mini shark's eyes and double jewel boxes!
...and tiny lightning whelks and apple murex....the apple murex above are 'average' size that you normally see...
This group was there just like this...the only thing that was live was the mussel....the rest went right into my shell bag!
So many minis.....look how tiny!
A double jewel box, tiny kittens paw and teenie nutmeg!!
I did find a baby's ear and a paper fig, a few olives and an awesome barnacle bunch....
....and a piece of Christmas Candy!! :)
Even though low tide was well before sunrise, with the calm water we could see very well and stayed until 9:30 or so!! Breakfast at Jerry's was calling for us, so we left....very satisfied!! We can't wait until tomorrow....it's different everyday so you never know.....wish us luck, this will be our last day of shelling....:( This trip! ::Hugs::
