The Essential Beachcomber

I'm spending some time on Sanibel with a niece visiting from out west. She had high hopes for a shelling bonanza but alas....Bowman's Beach was beautiful but bare of any of the bodacious shells one expects to find on Sanibel. We tried the east end of the island to no avail. Even the shell experts on the island have come up empty handed these last few days.  With the exception of some traverse arks, sea pork, & a wayward sea hare nothing was happening on the middle of the island either. To make matters worse my niece was all stoked for a Mucky Duck sunset on Captiva & the place was packed with no parking spot to be found. So leaving slightly disappointed we skeedaddled over to Blind Pass to catch the sunset. Good things come to those who wait. My niece & I got soaking wet in our dinner clothes as we pounced on a newly formed shell pile. That is what Sanibel shelling is all about - going with the flow. Don't ever let the lack of shells or parking get you down. T...

Florida went on Daylight Savings time with the rest of the Eastern  Standard Time on March 11.  It's a Florida coastal dweller's rite of springtime to get those extra few hours of daylight after the early evening dark nights of winter (I know - Florida right - what winter?) Now smack dab in the middle of summer, the  sunset is at 8:45pm these days.  Leaving Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, & the supper dishes in the sink is not that hard of a decision for me. My beach buddies Wade-ster & Gee-man feel the same way. These fellas can spend hours inspecting the ocean floor for sea critters. Both boys love to fish, cast net, & snorkel but tonight the long-handled nets are the apparatus du jour. Gee-man always gathers a crowd with his 5-gallon bucket containing his finds of the evening.  It's raining somewhere out there but not on us. Cotton candy clouds. Even the clouds behind us are lit up from the glow of the sett...

The good news is................ An early morning thunderstorm blew through Englewood  on Wednesday leaving behind lots of shell booty. Pen shells are a sure sign of a storm.  The stinky odor was a sure sign the pen shells were goners. The newly formed sand bar/tidal pool was lined with shells from ding to dong. The bad news............ The beach erosion has reached critical mass.  Manasota Key lost an estimated 90% of it's turtle nests. Several homes have lost their back areas when the dunes washed out by the high surf. Beach Road is the only way to access the mainland from the north & south.  To close the road for repairs would be a major headache for home owners, summer tourists, & local beach goers. Love the rain - love the shells - erosion, not so much. The good news is......... The federal government approved disaster relief funding for Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties on Monday, which will help officials cop...

Every once in a while TEB has to travel inland to pay a visit to land-locked relatives. I traveled 200 miles north last weekend to attend a family picnic at my cousin's house located in Levy County.   Like most of the southeastern US, the Nature Coast of Florida has been experiencing drought-like conditions for several years now. Thanks to Tropical Storm Debby, Florida got a much needed drenching.  Everything is green & growing, the frogs are croaking in crescendo, and the mosquitoes are proliferating  with a vengeance.  My weekend in the swampy coastal hammock where my cousin lives was in the state of mosquito plague.   My cousin's cousin came with his mosquito truck and blew around the property...twice.  My cousin's husband donned his full body mosquito net suit that he uses for hunting and sprayed the perimeter of the house with a hand-held fogger.  I doused myself in my fancy botanical insect repelle...

The first tropical storm of the 2012 storm season -Debby - blew in, hovered over Florida for 3 days, then blew out leaving many SWFL beaches rearranged. The southern end of Manasota Key was dredged 2 years ago to open up Stump Pass and deepen the channel to allow boats to travel through without getting beached on the shoals building up by the constantly shifting sands.  The dredging was a success but thanks to the storm the pass has become shallow again.  Further north on Manasota Key, Blind Pass Beach (not Sanibel-Captiva) has a swath of new sandbars cut into the beach. Good news to sharks tooth hunters.  It hardly seems a week ago we were all hunkered down with tornado warnings, rain squalls, & flooding.  But the sun is shining again and SWFL is back to normal.   Lest we all forget there was a storm, Here's a video I took last Monday.  I donned my slicker and hiked the mile out to the end of Stump Pass to see if my junonia had washed in yet. ...

Pen shells are a sure sign of a recent storm.  Under the tangle of flotsam & pen shells are lots of shells treasures. Whenever a tropical depression or storm rolls through SWFL it is inevitable that shells will follow - not your normal traverse arks and cockle shells but lightning whelks, scotch bonnets, & hopefully a junonia or two. The where & the when can be elusive. The first shells usually show up on the low tide following a storm.  Depending on which way the wind was blowing determines the probability of which beach.  TS Debby was spinning counter-clockwise and the winds were blowing SW.  On Sanibel more than likely the Lighthouse Beach on the southern-end of the island is where the storm bounty will roll in.   But one still must attend to the daily duties of life.  When the word gets out the shells have arrived the window of opportunity is small.  In a few short hours the masses have arrived at the beach looking for shel...

(Credit:  www.fox10tv.com) One of the earliest tropical storms of a summer on record, Debby has been swirling around in the Gulf of Mexico and hovering over the panhandle since Saturday June 23. The shelling vigil had begun. Every shell fanatic from Sanibel to Englewood & north to Honeymoon Island are watching the beaches for the first shells to start rolling in. This is junonia prime time folks. With Tropical Storm Debby hanging over the panhandle, SWFL is still experiencing high surf advisories & a fair amount of flooding.  Just when the sun comes out shining and it looks like a normal weather day; the wind starts gusting, the sky darkens again and another rain squall blows through. A tropical depression or storm usually blows right through and the beaches are full of shells the next morning low tide.  TS Debby has been hovering over us for 4 days now. SWFL is in shell limbo. There are eyes & ears out there watching the beaches via facebook , webcams , ...

Every SWFL surfer lives for stormy days & high surf advisories. Just another day in paradise.  Tropical Storm Debby is rolling through SWFL bringing tornado warnings & high surf advisories.  Warnings like that are Beach Boy music to the ears of every beach comber & surfer in the vicinity. It's still a little too rough for the shells to roll in.  Low tide was at 11:11am & the storm surge had pushed the tide line past the turtle nests and up to the sand dune embankment.  The south  winds were gusting to about 30 mph with the waves reaching the 6-10 foot range. One of my shell sistahs calls these tropical storms "shell showers". I'll keep you posted. Just another day in paradise - welcome Tropical Storm Debby. Blind Pass Beach on Manasota Key was packed  with surfers and their entourages. No life guard - No board - no problem.  There's always body surfing. This turtle nest will hopefully hold on.

As I was looking out the window this morning watching the rain fall and mentally scrounging for something blog-worthy to share, my mind kept traveling backwards over the last year.  Life as I knew it came to a screeching halt last July when my dear hubby had his first heart attack.  I had recently left my job of six years with the plan of pursuing a change of career.  In April  hubby had a second heart attack followed by my mom (who lives with me) having a stroke ten days later.  My new career (it seems) is home health care.  My days are now full of pill bottles, doctors appointments, & making edible food for people that can't eat salt, sugar, or red meat. Just when I think I have nothing else to give the Lord quietly reminds me - I'll be with you.   My questions has changed from "Why" to "Who".  God, who do you want to be for me right now that you couldn't be any other time? When I have needed strength - Heavenly Father has grab...