Island hopping looking for shells. One kayak, many possibilities!

hello beach friends we're starting our morning over at caxambus marina because we're going kayaking to those islands that you see out in the distance yes i am finally taking my own kayak out here to do some exploring we're going to dickman's island some sand bars and eventually we're going to make our way over to kais island so i hope everyone is ready to do some island exploring and i hope you like sand dollars because we're going to see a plethora of them and we'll search beaches sandbars and islands to see what we might find if you're ready to do some exploring let's go to the beach [Music] [Music] so let's just get right to it so in the kayak heading over to those islands the tide is going out but it's going to be dead low soon so i'm kind of hustling and look at that looks like a sandbar but it's just shells shells upon shells and we're not going to mess around with those we're looking for stuff that looks more like this massive lightning whelk that i could not take because we have a big old red hermit crab in there so that is occupied and i am not allowed to take that or nor should you it's actually illegal but beyond that it's just not cool so we leave the critters at the beach and i drug my kayak all the way up because like i said the tide will be coming in dead low is coming so i want to drag it nice and high so it doesn't float away and just to give you an idea of exactly where we're going to be i'll get into that in a second so right here we're on dickman's island and normally all a lot of this maybe not all of it a lot of it is covered by water so let's take a look at that real quick so we're in southwest florida specifically we are at marco island and i launched from caxamus marina which is the south south end of marco island so we zoom in there there's the south end of marco island so that is where the marina is that little thing there that is that big shell mound we just passed and then that is dickman's island now you'll see in front of dickman's currently in this picture it's just completely covered with water but when we're there it's low tide so this area here is where we're kind of exploring you know walking around looking for goodies so that is where we are and i'm sort of interested in what's on the beach here but i'm really a lot more interested in what's near the water so i'm not going to pay too much attention to the stuff that's here well all right maybe except this bright purple scallop i can't resist that so let's pick that up along the way and here we are i finally get to the water and this is this is the moment for me where i kind of get a determination of what the day is going to be like and i see sand dollars everywhere okay cool so it looks like i'm going to meet my sand dollar quota real quick you'll notice i don't actually use the sand dollar to pull it up i kind of pushed the sand underneath it increasing the chances of not breaking it of keeping it whole so i couldn't help myself i mean they were just they were just everywhere so i had to pick up a couple and i keep a little plastic hard container in my shell bag unfortunately the container is only so big so i have to be i don't have to be i'm only going to be able to fit a couple of sand dollars in that container so gonna be a little picky because i can only take a couple so anything that kind of maybe is missing pieces i'm probably gonna leave at the beach but i don't think i'm gonna go home empty-handed with those sand dollars for sure there's another one and that's something i told you guys to kind of look for those little black areas you can look for the sand dollar itself but sometimes those little black areas are a little more evident yeah that is a monster lightning walk clearly seen better days i'm sure other shellers did the same thing checked it out and passed on oh another rather lovely sand dollar what else do we got oh there's another sand dollar okay some sunray venus clams another sand dollar another sand dollar yeah they were everywhere okay here now that is a piece of a true tulip just a piece they get pretty big not as big as the lightning whelks or the horse conks but they get pretty big some of the bigger species most of the other stuff really kind of stays in the couple of inch size and here we see lots of bivalves look at this sun ray venus and another little sun ray venus so these are clams that have a particularly lovely pattern to them so i'm just kind of checking out see what else is here it might be interesting or something that we want to hold on to so it is low tide right now and like i said earlier normally this is completely covered by water so this is kind of cool to be out here so it's dead low right now and the tide will start to come in but we got plenty of time look at how pretty that is now that is really really pink compared to the ones that i normally find that are more of a creamy tan color so that pink one is really cool definitely gonna hold on to that and a turkey wing all right cool all right it's a little chipped yeah on that front side it is a little chipped but turkey wing nonetheless and i'm probably gonna hold on to that ah broken base scallop not terribly exciting another sand dollar yeah because i decided since i'm kayaking and i'm not gonna have to put them all in my shell bag i had another bag with me so i stuck all those sand dollars in another bag and that is another really cool sunray venus i like the patterns on that i'm gonna put that in oh not that one i was gonna put that in my extra bag i couldn't help but there were so many i was driving me bananas oh i really like the pattern on that one so that's another sunray venus so in addition to my shell bag i have another bag that i have sand dollars in if i wasn't kayaking i wouldn't be able to do that sand dollar and sunray venus because the sand dollars would definitely get crushed in my shell bag so i have a second bag that i'm going to leave in my kayak just checking out what else was some stuff in the water i want to make sure i wasn't missing anything up here on the beach very little sarath more of the sunray venus clams some surf clams some beat up florida fighting conks here is a lightning welcome most of it some of it part of a lightning milk oh wait a minute there we go that's a whole lightning milk very pretty it's a very cool lightning walk uh oh yep when you see that you know a critter is looking for the water hey friend so this is a little live lettered olive and yes i know the tide is coming in and it probably would be fine but the water was right here so i figured i'd help a little snail out there you go friend and another one okay now that is a florida fighting conch that appears to have been buried got himself out or herself and wasn't really moving around i'm assuming it's looking for water so there is a little tide pool not too far and again it probably would be fine but i can't help myself so help out another little snail put it in the water there you go buddy isn't it pretty so this is really a sandbar what we're on right now and it is very exposed which is very exciting oh what do we got it's probably alive yep so that is a live lightning wilk another nice big shell that i cannot keep because that critter is not done with it yet so we'll just put it back where we found it see if there's any other good keepers here all right that is a paper fig oh dear yeah not a keeper what else we got so tons of stuff here but i'm really kind of looking for something that's a little more special all right here is a juvenile fighting conch i see some pen shells oh here we go there's a banded tulip with a little bit of beach stuff on it cool and hold on to that so i'm just really kind of looking for that diamond in the rough what do we got just a piece of shell and a base scallop but it's a little busted up so we're looking for that exciting stuff really you know you know you're gonna have a lot of green stuff because this is typically like a tidal zone so stuff will grow on the shelves here we have another turkey wing very nice and a lettered olive with a little something something stuck in there and i guess that caught my eye too that's actually kind of pretty as well so i'm gonna hold on to that oh all right that's a banded tulip and it's a little broken so we are not gonna take that one i do keep broken shell sometimes just kind of depends on how it's broken so i know at this point the tide is coming in it'll come in slowly but i really want to take advantage of the low tide and do i kind of feel a little bit of pressure i want to just see as much as i can and here is another massive lightning whelk but that is just a little bit too beat up again meet a bunch of shellers decided the same thing we'll leave that shell on the beach okay isn't that real pretty if you hold it just so that is another banded tulip what else we gonna find so lots and lots of goodies here's another banded tulip most of it 75 of a banded tulip here's another our p.m those are broken too oh well keep looking keep looking oh okay that is a knobless florida fighting kind of a strange shape cool coloring i'm gonna hold on to that just kind of scanning it's kind of a not challenge but you want to be thorough but yet you want to kind of not dilly dally and look at these two great lightning walks now i've heard that the males are darker so perhaps i don't know we have a male and a female lightning wilkes shell yeah that's a giant horse conch i'm not going to wind too much though because i finally did get mine so that is a horse not really a keeper in my opinion kind of beat up and i wasn't alone look people had five gallon buckets i bet they're full of sand dollars so they i was not alone plenty of people plenty of shells to go around though and i've been kind of creeping around here for a while there's an angel wing it's broken and i do have my kayak so i think i want to head on over to kais i want to see how my luck is there if you get heebie-jeebies you're not going to like this there were little fiddler crabs all over the place they're like the work the ground was just kind of squirming and moving all over the place and i wondered how how do they know which is their hole because there were some they definitely know which one is theirs so they're just kind of scurrying about these fiddler crabs probably also waiting for the tide to come in and luckily the bird i asked to watch my kayak did a great job i owe that bird five bucks for watching my kayak thank you very much bird so we are now going to kayak over to kais island so right now we are behind dickman's island and you'll notice there's no sand here it's all mangroves so this is the other side kind of like the base side of dickman's island we were just on the gulf side and there's dickman's there and here we are on kais kais has been really really good to me so i was very excited to be here i was bummed i wasn't the first one here what are you gonna do there is a couple other kayaks here but i'm gonna suspect there's plenty of shells to go around so we're probably not going to leave disappointed kind of just check out what's over here and then i want to make my way over to the gulf facing part of the beach but before i do that i saw this white fighting conch or at least a piece of it and i was really hoping it was going to be an albino but i don't think so i it's yeah there's some color there so just kind of a rather light fighting conch which i'm going to go ahead and hold on to here we go so kaise is pretty wild if you ever do come here definitely wear shoes i mean it is very lots of tree roots and all sorts of stuff that can kind of make it not so fun on bare feet so definitely wear shoes if you come here and you'll notice on the front part a lot of this island actually there used to be trees here and since the islands change the sand comes and goes saltwater comes in kills the trees and this is kind of what's left here kind of this like mucky spongy oh look that is a short spined sea urchin complete with a couple of shells they like to collect some shells too and that is a moon snail rather beat up and slimy i'm not i'm usually not too worried about the green stuff it's just it's you know when they're broken there's not much you can do about that so i'm in this rather hey i'm gonna go wherever i can i'm desperately trying to see if i can get to the sand and see things that are half buried yeah i can't really get there it doesn't seem to be like sand it's still a lot of this kind of spongy gooey stuff so not all that much there i decided okay let's let's head up onto the beach and let's see what's up here i found some color it looks like a calico scallop it's a rather lovely scallop oh there we go oh well all right it so it's abandoned to a little broken still to keep it still going to keep that shell all right here we go found some sand so i like getting to this part i'm kind of hoping that they'll be you know a piece of a conch or a lightning milk something big kind of sticking up out of the water and there's nothing here nothing but if you're gonna find those monsters unless you're really really lucky this is probably where you're gonna find him so i was hunting really hoping i'd see just a piece something exposed what'd i get ah little kitten paw which is not a small lion's paw two are completely different and another sand dollar let's take a look oh looks like it has some acorn barnacles still kind of hanging out there let's return that back to the water and i did kind of find this spot so oh look what we have here now that is a true tulip just like that piece we found earlier but that is a smaller version of a true tulip it's whole i am definitely keeping that i know the color is a little weird but i don't care it's a great looking true tulip and so i'm still i found like i said i found this spot and i figured all right not very exciting what else am i going to dig up from here a lot of times there'll be a couple of things all right here we have an apple mirrex it's a little discolored no again with a color i'm not too concerned with i think there's some base color on there it should clean up okay oh yay all right nice looking banded tulip very cool nice definitely keeping that oh i found another apple muric's excellent this one has a little bit less of a discoloration nice another band oh well yeah it is another banded tulip with a big old hole in it so i'm probably gonna leave that and that is a giant atlantic cockle even though it's just a weed little thing so that's a giant atlantic cockle looks like i grabbed two all right lightning walk that is not a keeper and a lightning well cut is a keeper all right it's got a couple chips but still that is a decent looking lightning milk another sand dollar i emptied out my container so i can take more i'm not going to keep that one and a turkey wing that looks like it had a run in with i don't know bristle worms something kind of got onto that top layer but that is a tricky wing oh that's real pretty so that's a calico scallop real pretty pattern of that with the pink the pale pink and those kind of like white bursts very nice oh a banded tulip excellent they are very very hard to find with an intact aperture with that outer lip part intact all right there we have a calico clam it's a little discolored and there i see one of those short spined sea stars but look what i found inside the tree stump and apple muric's and it was alive so i thought that was just crazy so little critter is still alive good thing i found you friend it would have been i don't know how that how high that water would have had to get look at that it was hidden inside that tree stump that was crazy and there was nothing else there to check just in case there's a genomia or something in there oh another sand dollar well i've been enjoying myself at the beach and now it's your turn oh i spy something kind of stuck in these branches here oh i just wanted to check it out that is also a horse conch oh that would have been fantastic but it's broken womp womp oh but here we have a calico scallop with that pretty orange stripe on it very nice what okay i said what else is going to catch my eye this time it was orange of an orange that is also a calico scallop does have some beach stuff on there but it's orange i can't help it a lettered olive very very nice pointy shiny glossy lettered olive very nice oh and a bay scallop they come in two different colors sometimes they're going to be that white color and sometimes they're going to be that white and kind of like orangey colors that is a big scallop another banded tulip by the end of this video you're going to have banded tulips nailed so those are some two banded tulips just to give you reference of kind of where i am water's out there again low tide it's coming in and i'm mostly just kind of trying to check out where the freshest shelves might be the stuff that's been more recently washed up because there are some shell piles here i will show you those but here i'm gonna open something a little special very pretty day that's the shell pile so this is behind kind of where i was exploring and this is stuff that's been here a little bit while probably been picked through that's not to say there wouldn't be anything here it's another calico scallop you never know so i'm just scanning here there's another scallop oh pretty that's another calico scallop mostly arcs i mean mostly what i'm seeing here are a couple scallops here and there there's another one and just because this stuff has been here a while doesn't mean there might not be a gem in here somewhere so that's why i kind of try to check abandoned tulip a little bit broken but that is okay oh and i spy a little lightning milk so there's definitely all right here we have a kitten paw and a crossbar venus i'm just gonna say there's definitely shells here and there's another calico scallop and i thought i wasn't quite sure what that was and that is a fighting conch that i decided not to keep believe it or not and another calico scallop oh and a letter to olive is it going to pass the gloss test i think it does nice coloring on that really cool and another another lettered olive not albino i had really been hoping i'm on the hunt for an albino letter to olive what do i got here oh well here we have a tinted cantharis that again looks absolutely nothing like a ribbed cantharis just to make things confusing here we have another that is a calico scallops a super pretty color very very nice wow like a giant jingle so it's just a jingle but it is really really big really cool and that is a sun ray venus that's just discolored and strange looking i'm not sure if that's really slime or not so i thought that was neat i'm gonna hold on to that oh it's alive so that is a live lettered olive that is the creature that makes all those fantastic shells thank you very much i see another critter so this is a hermit crab inside of one of those banded tulips and i like to see if it's going to come out and say hi sometimes they're feisty and they kind of really give you a give you a show sometimes they're a little shy this one appears to be on the shy side so we'll just admire the great shell i decided to keep as it's home and we're gonna keep it moving what do i spy a lightning whelk nice all right that's a great size really intact very pretty lightning well oh and a hinged sunray venus again really happy with that yay now here's another lightning look a little discolored but we've found enough i'll probably just leave that for somebody else and we've been together a while guys and i know we do have much more exploring to do but we are going to continue next week we're going to look through shell piles and let me just tell you we're kind of ramping up we are gaining momentum because trust me we find tons of great stuff so thank you special thank you to my patreons thank you very much for helping me and financially supporting me when i go out and do my thing and everybody else thank you so much for choosing to spend your time with me walking the beaches here in southwest florida we will continue our walk next week so i hope you have yourself a great week and i'll see you again next sunday