This morning I asked Griff what the WOTD should be and Xander piped up, "five!" So five it is. Griff had expected to draw five of something (but got distracted, so no image from him today) and I wasn't sure what I would do. I forgot about it as we explored the "Ding" Darling visitor center and sampled homemade ice cream, but as luck would have it, we happened upon the perfect shot in the evening.
I love sand dollars. My idea of the best shelling find possible is a perfect, wholly intact, sun-bleached sand dollar test. I have found two in my life - one on Drake's Beach near Point Reyes, CA, in the mid-80s, and one on my last morning on Cumberland Island, GA, in 1998.
Shelling suits my obsessive, detail-oriented personality perfectly. It's tactile, it's meditative, it's goal-oriented yet also requires you to immerse yourself in the process. I can search for the perfect shell for hours. Literally, hours. If not for the duties of parenthood,the irritations of sunburn and bug bites and darkness, and the necessity of sleep, I could hunt along the tide line and under the surf indefinitely. Since starting our trip, I discovered the I Love Shelling blog, and Pam's nearly daily accounts of the myriad treasures found on Sanibel's beaches filled me with beachcombing lust. Already I had seen how different two beach locations could be (West Gulf beach and Blind Pass), and I decided that we must also check out the lighthouse beach. What a perfect pick - we arrived about an hour before low tide and left an hour afterward. Sand bars stretch wayyyyyy out into the water and even Xander could wade or crawl far from shore. After seeing some women with shelling nets, Griff and I had decided to pick up some of our own, and armed with one net per family member, we hit the sand bars and tide line.
Very early on I scooped up a gigantic cockle. I quickly realized that it was still alive, so it wasn't a keeper (live shelling is illegal, and even if it weren't, I would put back any shell with an inhabitant), but we were able to inspect it and talk about the creature living inside, who had made the shell. Soon afterward we found an apple murex shell - also still housing its creator - and quite a few hermit crabs and spider crabs. At one point I found a brittle star in my shelling net, a great and unexpected catch. I was surprised that all three kids were eager to see every new find, although Xander was a little concerned when the rest of us held the spider crabs. He was less worried by the many, many living sand dollars we found. You could pick one up almost anywhere by sifting your fingers under the top layer of silt and sand. Some were as big across as my hand. We examined their little tube feet (I'll admit, I was hoping to find one that wasn't moving so I could keep it) and Reese insists that one bit him with its mouth - although I'm suspicious of this claim, because their actual teeth are tucked up inside the center, underneath the animal. I suspect he was feeling the roughness of the cilia and tube feet inside the anal lunule (one of the "keyholes"), which might look like a mouth to a person meeting an echinoderm for the first time.
Living sand dollars are fascinating to me. The combination of simplicity and complexity, the elegance of their radial symmetry (pentamerism, if you want to get technical), the fragility of the dead tests (shells) even while the living creatures thrive under our feet. It's all so cool. While I didn't find a test to take home, I did manage to dig up a wealth of beautifully twisty, twirly other shells. Best uninhabited find: a banded tulip. I found a slightly battered paper fig as well and felt triumphant. Oh, I could have dug there forever, with kiteboarders around us, Fort Myers in the distance across the bay, the setting sun casting golden light over Griff in the surf and Xander digging holes in the sand and Reese feeling shells in his hands right at the tide line.
Like the sand dollars, today was simple, yet complex, and discovering it was intensely satisfying.
