Winter storms tend to churn up the bottom of the Gulf which leads to new and interesting items on the beach. When the aftermath of one of those storms coincides with a minus tide, the beachcombing is not to be missed. So, yesterday I drove down early to Siesta Key and met Alyssa, her dad Tom, and step mom Suzanne for a morning of shelling.

It was still dark and a breezy 47° but we didn’t let that stop us! We had our headlamps and wore multiple layers. Since I’m a complete cold weather wimp I even had on ear muffs and gloves. Believe it or not, we weren’t the only ones braving the elements, we could see other little dots of light up and down the beach.

There were plenty of shells for everyone and it seemed every couple feet there was something that caught my interest. After a few hours we left to grab breakfast and rest our necks. By the time we returned to the sand, the sun had done it’s job and it was much warmer!

While the crowd had grown there was still so much to see. Interestingly, there were a lot of occupied shells, either by the original creator or by hermit crabs. We returned all the live ones we found to the gulf. Even had the chance to carefully untangle a Sea Cucumber from the wrack and slide it back into the water.

A quick internet search identified the flat, gray, and very dehydrated fish I found as a Planehead Filefish. I collected a few more Chestnut Turbans, Bubbles, and an Oyster Drill as they are rare on my beach. Came across the molt of a Flame Streak Box Crab, a new species for me. Since I had recently read about them, I knew that the green mussel shell, while colorful, was from an invasive species (at least it was dead).

As for the highlight of the day, I have two favorites and both were firsts for me. I was thrilled to find a Sea Potato, the test of a Heart Urchin (related to sand dollars). While the slightly curved, amber half moon that caught my eye, turned out to be a Shark Eye Moon Snail operculum (the door to their shell).

Definitely worth getting up early for!