Whenever we have a storm in the Gulf I always look forward to finding seashells.
For some odd reason Destin just doesn't have many shells was ashore.
I don't know why but you can travel 30 miles east or west of us and find some pretty good shells but here along our beach we just don't see many.
Unless there is a storm in the Gulf that sends us a storm surge.
So after Isaac moved to the west I went to the beach, hoping to find some cool shells.
As we were walking out to the East Jetty we passed a man with two cups, filled with shells.
He'd found mostly Olive shells and told us that they weren't washing up in the tide - they were falling out of the dune where the tide was washing away at it.
It seems that years ago they came up with sand that was dredged out of the Gulf and put on the beach to help build up sand dunes.
We walked to the dune line and saw this.
It looked fine but then this would happen.
The water was washing in and out with such force that it would have been very easy to lose our footing in the sand and from there it wouldn't take much before we'd find ourselves being pulled out into the Gulf.
When the Gulf looks like this...
Being knocked off your feet and pulled out is not a good thing.
The Island King couldn't resist, did a quick run between waves and grabbed two good sized Olive shells for my Mom.
As we were walking back I noticed that because the beach had taken such a beating from the waves that every few feet I'd see just the tip of a shell sticking out of the sand.
I ended up finding a nice handful of Olives, Florida Augers, small Scallop shells, a Florida Cone shell and a Nutmeg shell.
Not a bad haul for this area. Labels: Done
