Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

Right before the storm taken on my iPhone

The plan was throw a bathing suit on, grab a bottle of water, & my camera then head to the beach for a 6pm low tide.  It's been a long month of July.  First the hubbs was looking a little peaked.  The VA emergency room decided to keep him in the hospital just because he had a little heart attack - go figure.  I put 1,800 miles on my vehicle driving back & forth to the VA hospital which is 3 counties away for 9 days. Next, was a visit from my nephews (3 & 6) so their parents could cruise to Cozumel. GeeGee had not seen her grandsons in a year so it was decided to press on and not cancel.  It was a wonderful visit full of Thomas the Train & Cars 2 videos, swimming in the pool, & trying to figure out what we could beg the kids to eat that wasn't covered in chocolate or shaped like a nugget. So, I am bolting out the door for some much needed beach time to re-calibrate myself.


  It was looking a little stormy on my drive out across the causeway but I was in total denial. As I pulled into the parking lot I could hear & feel the rumble of thunder typical for a late afternoon July day in SWFL . Checking the weather app on my phone it showed a huge storm but it appeared to be moving over Manasota Key rather quickly. I decided to give it an hour and wait it out.  The best sharks teeth are always after a storm so I grabbed a bottle of water from my cooler, reclined my seat back, & prepared to wait the storm out. I had a front row seat to view all the beach-goers (who were also in denial about the storm because they waited way too long to leave) skeedaddling off the beach dragging umbrellas, coolers, & wailing kids to the safety of their cars. A cool wind  blew  shell dust up from the parking lot in curling mini-tornadoes announcing the pounding rain that was right behind it. As I sat in my truck watching the beauty of a summer storm & listening to the deluge hammer some crazy techno-reggae beat on the roof of my truck I thought to myself  "I couldn't have planned this". 


Forty-five minutes later the parking lot is empty except for me & a few other cars.  The rain is now just drizzling & the weather app shows all clear. I cross the parking lot to the beach which is now completely empty except for it's normal occupants of pelicans & gulls having a post-rain party over a school of bait fish.  I immediately started looking for sharks teeth.  The rain pounds the sand down and reveals some of the best sharks teeth on the surface of the sand. As I look up the beach I see not sharks teeth but a line of shells as far as the eye can see.  Manasota Key gets some shells but hardly ever like this.  My sharks tooth plan has just shifted to include shells.  As I walked about a mile out & back my cargo shorts became droopy drawers under the weight of my shell-stuffed pockets.  I hadn't planned for shells so I had not brought a bucket.  My camera had been left behind  as well so it's just another story I'll have to tell hoping folks don't think I'm exaggerating about my sharks tooth venture that mutated into a shelling bonanza.

I planned to collect sharks teeth but found shells as far as the eye could see instead. I went back the next day to take some pictures.

The surf line is loaded with the shell gravel that contains the sharks teeth

Chicoreus dilectus - lace murex
(A. Adams, 1855) 

Top left are fossil bones of some kind.

The storms always stirs things up & bring in the bigger teeth

After the storm

One plan you can count on - the sun will rise & set every day


"For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome." Jeremiah 29:11