Sanibel Island

March 1-4-I had gone to Sanibel Island (known

for some of The best shelling in the world)as a child
and had such fond memories, that I had wanted Janae and
Stefan to experience it.  It was so fun driving the bridge over to the island at sunset.  We only had two and 1/2 days and the time flew.  Wished we could  have stayedlonger.  We were on a quest for shells and were a bit discouraged the first day because they weren’t on thebeach as I remembered.  We were told we would have to get up at 4 in the morning if we wanted to find some good ones.
We met a Professional jazz/folk singer at the marina our first morning named Shannon Battle who
allowed Janae to try her guitar and sing with
her.  As luck would have it, I didn’t have my
camera but it was a special connection and
she gave Janae a necklace and CD.  Had
hoped we could connect again, but it didn’t work out.

The bike trails are great on the island and we rode to the shellfair/show where           

people come from all over the world and

then  we rode to the beach.  Our campsite
neighbors, from Wisconsin welcomed
us and gave Stefan a ride on his boat.


The highlight of our weekend was on Saturday morning when we drove to the point again near Captiva Island and we hit the jackpot.  The waves were crashing in with shells faster than we could catch them.  Janae and I used nets as we grabbed beautiful conch and whelk shells.  It was exhilerating to say the least.  We didn't have long to stay because we wanted to go to a bird show back at the campground.  We promised Janae we would come back.

We made it to the bird show in time and Stefan loved it.  He got to see and hold many parrots. Afterwards we had some lunch and went back to our morning shelling spot but they were all gone.  All the shells were buried in sand and Janae was greatly disappointed.  I had to point out how lucky we were to be there this morning.

The cove by lighthouse beach that looked like something out of the Caribean

Our wonderful Wisconsin neighbors who made us feel so welcome.  They surprised Janae with a Mahogoney nut flower and Stefan with a pirate coin before we left. 

We visited another beach before landing at the lighthouse beach.  We enjoyed finding smaller more unique shells here.  I even got to see a dolphin.

We had a special treat tonight as we stopped at dairy queen and had supper and sundaes before driving to Captiva to see the sunset and see the town.  Very nice place.  A little more upscale than Sanibel.

Sunday, we had to check out at noon and parked Miss JimB at a park and went and visited the shell museum.  It's wonderful and wanted take advantage of the free passes that we were given.  Enjoyed learning that the perfect little holes we had been finding in our shells were actually from murexes who are carnivore mollusks and they drill into shells to eat their prey.