“"A good friend will come bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying...'Dog gone, that was fun!'"”

I have been to every beach up & down the Sarasota-Charlotte County coastal border. I am pretty familiar with each beach & it's particular characteristics. If it is shells I'm in the mood for then I head to the North Jetty in Nokomis. If sharks teeth are the beachcomber du jour then it's Blind Pass in Englewood. If it's both then I'm off to Stump Pass. Blind Pass & Manasota Beach have free parking. If you are at Stump Pass for sunset you can't linger. The ranger nicely tells you the park is closed and steers you off the beach.


 What I have never attempted is to walk the beach from ding to dong. My beach buddy for the day was my friend Lil Shorty. We started out at Englewood Beach and walked north 3 miles to Blind Pass. We thought it would take us a few hours but it actually took us almost 5. Right out of the chute we found a super good patch of sharks teeth and hung out there for a while.

Lil Shorty looking for sharks teeth

This is what it looks like up close.  Aren't those colors amazing!

Jim Wilson vacationing on Englewood Beach with his homemade sharks teeth scoop

We met Jim Wilson from "35 miles south of Chicago" . He was apparently the expert on that leg of the beach.   As he sat in his chair there wasn't a person that passed that didn't say hello to him by name. He scored 200 sharks teeth the day before with his homemade apparatus made from pvc pipe & a utensil of some sort. Jim has a back problem that precludes him from bending. His homemade tool works just fine. I heard him whisper to a guy that he had all his really big teeth back at his trailer.  So Lil Shorty & I started out trek back up the beach. About a mile into our walk it started to get a little rocky.

The beachfront owners had the boulders placed  on their shoreline in an effort to keep their beachfront from eroding

Shell crush caught in the rocks was riddled with sharks teeth

Looking through the rocks for hidden beach combing goodies

The waves had tossed up all that shell crush on the rocks so we were finding lots of sharks teeth on the rocks too. It's possible I misjudged the tide because it was starting to come in fast and the sand we were walking on was disappearing . To continue up the beach it was clear we would either have to walk in the water or climb the rocks.


 I'm 5'10 so I choose the water path. Lil Shorty announced to me she loves to rock climb & is very adept at it. Alrighty then...... She then proceeded to do her best mountain goat imitation and scurried right up the rocks. I thought for sure Lil Shorty would want to turn around but - no way! We set our faces to the brilliant sun & cool winds and keep going.

Are we sure we want to keep going? What's up ahead?

Lil Shorty would not be stopped

After living in Oregon for a spell the girl's got some skills

Going forward one rock at a time

Shell fossils in the rocks

A huge piece of coral inside a boulder

Love the colors of the beach rocks

The tide is definitely coming in

So Lil Shorty didn't fall & I didn't get too wet. We made it to Blind Pass with a big pocket full of sharks teeth & big grins on our faces that speak of plans to do it again. I had to text the Hubbs to go put more money in my parking meter so I didn't get a parking ticket.  He was patiently waiting for us on the beach at Blind Pass to drive us back to where we started. I have the best Hubby & the best girlfriends evah! Next time we're walking from Blind Pass north to Manasota Beach.  Stay tuned.

More teeth for my jar