Tuesday Evening With Sanibel Sea Critters

The low temperature last night was a pleasant 71 degrees. Today it reached 91, which would have been too warm for me, but there was wind to help cool you off.

This evening we went to the beach at the Nerita St access, because when we were on the east end, evening before last, the tide was really low and we figured it would be again. As we walked out toward the beach, we could see that we had been right. The tide was out and people were walking around in ankle to knee deep water, looking for shells.

As it turned out, there were a lot of live critters walking around in the water. The other people shelling seemed disappointed every time they picked up a shell and it was alive. On the other hand, they were excited just watching them crawl around. There were all kinds of shells, most of them were small, except for several large cockles and medium size tulips. There really weren't any shells on the shore that I saw worth picking up, other than 3 bubble shells and a tip of a worm shell. But, I had a ball just walking in the warm water and watching see critters. :)











Sea Pork
As you can see, not many shells, mostly crumbs.









There was a lady almost laying down, as she dug in the sand.



The Sanibel Holiday Inn.

I hadn't seen a crab like this one before. Anyone know what kind it is?





This guy looked like he might have had a little too much brew.



The shorebirds sure had plenty to feast on this evening.

A Horseshoe Crab that got left high and dry. The Horseshoe Crabs are a primitve creature, sometimes called a living fossil. They are pretty interesting, they look dangerous, but they aren't. The weird thing is that they are really not true crabs at all. They are members of an ancient group of arthropods, and distant relatives of the spider and scorpion. ?? I know; seems pretty strange that they live in water. If you are wondering what they eat, that would be clams, worms and some other invertebrates. They place the tastey morsels near their mouth in the center of its underside where the legs are attached and then crush and grind it with the rough section of the legs. There are five pairs of legs. They use the first four for walking and the fifth pair has flaps that are used for pushing. the pinchers on that last pair are also used for cleaning their gills in the abdomen. The males first pair of legs are heavier than the females. Interesting piece of information, just in case you see more than one and would like to know which are males and females. :) The tail looks like a rudder, and that's what it is used for. If it happens to get flipped over, it can dig itself into the sand with the tail to support itself as it turns over. The Horseshoe crab, that's not a crab, actually has two sets of eyes. The large set are for polarized light and the other set is for ultraviolet light. During Spring and early Summer, Horseshoe crabs come onto shore to lay their eggs during the high tides of full and new moons when the water rises highest on the beach. When the female is ready to lay her eggs eggs, she crawls up to the high water line on the beach with a male attached to her. She drags him around during spawning. There may also be several others around her trying to fertilize the eggs. She digs herself into the sand where she buries a cluster of around 4000 tiny green eggs. She may lay several clusters in one night and can spawn over several nights to lay over 100,000 eggs. The eggs hatch in two to four weeks. The larvae enter the water during a high tide, looking like a miniature adult with no tail. For the first nine years of their life, they continually molt. Their lifespan is around 20 years.

Sorry, I got a little carried away there. I had read about the Horseshoe Crabs a while back and just gave myself a little refresher course. Yes....that was more information than you ever wanted or needed to know about a Horseshoe Crab. :)

This is what I carried home today.

Early this evening we went to the beach at Nerita St. The water was pretty calm and the sound of the waves was the relaxing type that we all yearn for. :) There was a lot of beach wrack and a few shells, but nothing I was interested in picking up. It was a little on the cool side, but I was comfortable in bermuda shorts and a sweatshirt. The high for the day was only 65 degrees, the water temp is 63 degrees.

The clouds were beautiful.

After a walk on the beach, we decided to have dinner at the Sanibel Cafe, which is now open from 7 to 7 everyday except Sunday when they close at 3. We had burgers and they were the best on the island! :)

Sanibel Evening Madness

Around 7:30 we went out the Nerita Street access from Middle Gulf Drive. Usually most people have left the beach by this time of evening, but there were still people in both directions as far as you could see. It seemed that most were families with school age children. I suppose that means the summer vacation madness has begun.

The was still some Manatee Grass left in this area, but basically none near the water. The temperature got up to 92 today, but somehow the Gulf temperature dropped a couple of degrees.

Low Tide Thursday

This evening,I was on the beach at the Nerita St. resident access, in front of Sanibel Beach Club and Coquina Beach Condos, which is at the east end of Middle Gulf Drive. I was there a short time before the tide was at it's lowest, which was predicted to be a - 0.1 just before 9 PM.

The first thing I noticed was how low the tide was. Then I was shocked to see how many people were on the beach, in both directions. I guess Spring Break time is in full swing, however most of the visitors here are families.

There were large, long tidal pools to search through for shells. There certainly didn't appear to be many, so I chose to leave them for the tourists, and didn't even look. There must have been some live shells in the pools because birds were busy diving in them. looking for dinner. I did see some people with shell bags that were nearly full.

It was a great evening to be out. The high temperature today was 81. The nights are now in the low 60's. :-)

Sanibel Friday Warm-up?

It was supposed to warm up today, but it seemed a little on the cool side to me. (After checking the weather later, I noticed that it only got up to 68 today.) I made a quick run over to the beach at the Nerita St. access on Middle Gulf Drive, around 4:00. It didn't seem quite as cool on the beach, which was nice. I was in capris and short sleeve T shirt and was comfortable. The sun felt very nice. There were lots of people out, some in chairs relaxing and others walking.

There really weren't many shells and I didn't see anything I wanted to pick up, so after a quick walk, and taking some pictures, I left.

There isn't much left of the sand sculptures that were here last week.








From there, I drove over to Pointe Santo on West Gulf Drive. Almost every parking space was full, so it seems that most of the condos are occupied now. As I went out on the beach, I noticed that there were quite a few beach chairs in use and lots of people on the beach. There were just a few more shells here than the other place. I feel sure there were more, further west, but I didn't have time to look any more today. The water was more clear at both places I stopped, than it had been lately and there were just gentle waves today.

I feel certain that if you walk out in the water and spend more time looking at different times during the day, there would be plenty of shells to find. :-) I'm a Slacker, remember?







The weather station on Sanibel shows 52 tonight and up to 75 tomorrow. Woo~Hoo!!!!

Nerita Street Wednesday

I had reports from the West Gulf Beach today, saying that the tide was the lowest some of the local people had ever seen. However, they found no shells to speak of. This evening at the Nerita Street access, on the east end of Middle Gulf Drive, it was warm enough that a lot of people were out on the beach. I was out wearing shorts and elbow length t-shirt and was comfortable. I'll have to say that I can handle the cold fronts here, pretty well. I still remember the below zero type.

Several people were bent over looking through some little shells that were scattered about. I saw nothing that I wanted to pick up. It was more interesting looking at the cool sand sculptures on the beach. Three people were working on another one, while I was taking pictures of others that were already there when they arrived. I saw some of these same sculptures on someone else's blog, and they had made them last week, while here on vacation. I just can't remember whose blog it was. They would probably be interested to see that so much of them are still in tact and bringing enjoyment to visitors.

Sea Horse

Sea Turtle









What is left of a great looking aligator.