Shelling In
Sanibel Island, Florida
Hunting seashells is a pastime for people of all ages. When you’re looking for shells you forget about the other aspects of life weighing on your mind and you become intimately focused on the beautiful creations that God has scattered across the shore. Whether you are simply searching for shells that are generally attractive to your eye or hunting for a specific shell that continues to elude your probing fingers, shelling is the kind of fun that makes time fly. Once you begin shelling it will be hard to turn your eyes on anything else, particularly on an island like Sanibel. After all, the shells are quite literally everywhere!
I have actually found out a lot about myself while shelling. Like snowflakes, shells are all unique. Somehow, each one looks different from the others and is special in its own way. Even when I come upon a 2-foot mound of them, they are all beautifully different from each other. After discovering this amount of variation in something as small as a shell, I realized how uniquely beautiful each one of us must appear to our Creator. I also found that a great amount of fun and peace can settle upon you while digging through the sand. The quiet of the beach, the lapping of Sanibel’s calm waters – all worries I may have carried with me to the beach dissipate in the humble simplicity of gazing deeply into nature. There is dazzling color, amazing forms of life, and the thrill of finding a particularly special shell that has the sand has gifted to you.
Sanibel Island has the largest treasure trove of seashells in the western hemisphere because of where it sits in the Gulf of Mexico. It rests perpendicular to the shoreline of Florida and therefore catches the shells in the gulf as they are carried northward in the current to Sanibel’s gently sloping shoreline. Shelling on Sanibel should top your list of activities during your Sanibel vacation if you really want to learn what a great deal of the island is all about. The shells of Sanibel have not only served as works of art, but also as primitive tools and as burial mounds for the Calusa Indians that once lived on Sanibel. Click on the links below for tips on making the most out of shelling, for ideas of things to do and make with your shells, and for information about Sanibel’s beaches.