Shelling near Marco Island Florida
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One of my family’s favorite beach-type pass times is shelling. We hit the beach and drag great gobs of different shells back to the vacation rental - only to be forced to leave 90% behind because we cant pack them all - or they smell funny.
I did find out you can clean seashells so they don’t smell - but picking up “dead shells” is your best bet for this, although that doesn’t guarantee they’ll be ’stink free’.
Depending upon what part of the states you visit, some of the shells you find are pretty dull. The Oregon coast for example delivers a vast number of mussles - which are pretty neat with their iridescent colors - but after you’ve seen a hundred of those, big deal!
So where else can you go to spend hours picking through shells on the beach. I actually did a search for best shelling beaches in Florida and found out the “Lee Island Coast” in Southwest Florida was actually one of the best places in the WORLD for shelling. Featuring nearly 100 barrier islands, some of the more familiar names would be Sanibel Island, Marco Island and Captiva Island.
Plan your shelling for low tide, so check out the tide tables before you leave on vacation - that way you’ll know the best time of day to hit the beach with your pail. You can also have better luck by checking out the “lay of the land” so to speak. One good spot is where the waves break over as they come up on the beach, it will look like a slight “ditch” just past the water line.
Be forewarned, live shelling is banned - this means if there’s a critter, or a portion of a critter inside, leave it alone!
You can actually “charter” a guide to take you shelling after kayaking to a barrier island. Or visit a “shell museum” - that’s some hard core shelling action!
There are over 400 species of shells that can be found int he area - from the common scallop to something called the brown speckled junonia - but when I search for that type of shell - all I get are images of butterflies - so that one must be pretty rare. You can also expect to find conch and sand dollars in abundance.
When you consider hitting the Lee Island Coast - I always recommend vacation rentals for your stay. I found a few that are right on the gulf beach and offer great convenience to shelling. Consider a Marco Island Condo Rental at South Seas on the Beach. Captiva Island Vacation Rentals also has some nice places on the sand.
top image from adactio
lower image from Francesco Z
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