Kayak Shell Tour 10,000 Islands Florida. Exploring sand bars for shells, sand dollars and treasures!

good morning beach friends well i know it's not technically morning right now but we are going to start really early because we have a four hour kayak tour that we're taking out of kaksambas park down in marco island so we're gonna have a lot of fun we're gonna find a bunch of shells it is going to be absolutely beautiful so i'm ready to share a really fun morning with you guys and if you're ready let's go to the beach [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so i had booked a tour with swfl shell guide and the tour leaves from cactambas park which we actually i've left from this place before there was another time i went out of here to go explore some of the 10 000 islands and that's what we're going to be doing today we're going to be heading over to a sandbar and it is just absolutely lovely now swfl shell guide does provide paddle kayaks so it's a lot easier getting over there and she also provides a waterproof phone case and a shell bag so those are a couple things you don't have to worry about bringing if you happen to book and go on one of her tours and check out all these dolphin look out in the water there there's a whole pod of them we usually see them when you're out in the boats but it's so thrilling when you're in the kayak and they're right there and so we landed at this little sandbar and it is just beautiful so we parked our kayaks and we're going to kind of walk over here the tide will be coming in so it's out at this point and i do what i always do and i head straight for the water hoping to find some goodies there and we are definitely going to have a fun morning so i will put any fears aside we do find some pretty fun stuff looks like we'll start off with a florida fighting conch all right pretty cool i want to be a little careful not collect too many of those too early because they're so heavy and here we have a lettered olive yay and a sand dollar now that's something i had kind of forgotten every time i come to marco i find sand dollars so once again i'm hoping i'll be pretty lucky in the sand dollar department okay cool here's another one fantastic completely safe to take home that is not a critter that is just the test or the skeleton of the critter all right we already picked up two that are kind of okay we'll leave that for somebody else looks like i found another one it's always fun to kind of see what kind of condition is it in that one's looking pretty good and yet another oh yeah we're not gonna take that one we're looking for the whole one sorry that's kind of cool so here we have a calico scallop complete with a matching barnacle kind of fun so this is where we are we're off of the mainland and out on sandbars all right let's just take a second let's take a look and what i mean where am i exactly so here is the marina that we stopped at or this is where we launched from and then we paddled out here around that sandbar so these sandbars come and go and even depending on storms you're never really guaranteed what's going to be there obviously at the time that this photo was taken it looks like it was probably high tide because you're not really seeing much of the sandbars but if you saw in that other shot i showed you there really is a lot of land in this location so that's where we were i'm kind of walking around in the water at this point seeing what kind of goodies i can find and of course i was hoping that that was an albino florida fighting conch but it's just a beat up one oh well never hurts to check it out though another sand dollar and those are a five-hole keyhole sand dollar see those things in the back i i found other sand dollars with that stuff on it i don't know what it is and i don't try to pick it off because i'm afraid i'll break the actual sand dollar so when those sand dollars have those things i just kind of leave it oh that's gorgeous all right here is another big beautiful clean gorgeous five-hole keyhole sand dollar awesome and what do we got here are i i don't know what i thought this was but this is sea pork sea liver some sort of tunica and a little squishy a little rubbery little thing and another florida fighting conch because i just love them that one is particularly orange and a little bit spiky and i'm not going to worry so much about that beach stuff i can get that off yeah all right some sort of surf clam looks like we have ourselves a little bit of a pile here and very i'm gently doing this just in case there's any sharp shells in there i would prefer not to cut myself so gently kind of move things around all right looks like a fantastic day for florida fighting conks and another oh nice and spiky and again i'm not too concerned about that kind of that green color on it usually 100 bleach will take that right off okay it was sort of buried and another ooh all right he's got some kind of cool patterns on there i do so love those floor defining okay there's a sunray venus clam so you know most of the common stuff is here speaking of common all right your prickly cockle and a calico scallop so a lot of the stuff we typically find up north where i'm about an hour south that's another sunray venus about an hour south of fort myers so pretty much seeing the same cast of characters that we see up where we normally are shelling hoping to find some more some little more exciting stuff [Music] that's a lettered olive big dark beautiful lettered olive and i see something orange okay ooh here is another nice spiky bright orange florida fighting conch very cool i'm kind of bummed that i'm finding him early because they're heavy but that's okay i'll just haul them around with me all right a leucine rather beat up with some barnacles i think i see another sand dollar i do oh it's so pretty i'm glad i got my little container to carry those around with they would not survive in a in a shell bag with those floor defining that's for sure yeah just a piece of a big old lightning walk oh well keep looking oh so pretty another sand dollar now these i don't know if you caught my other video i'll go ahead and i'll put a little link up there in the corner but to clean these up my new method is hydrogen peroxide so that is a really safe way to clean these beautiful sand dollars up what else did we find oh it looks like i'm digging all right hey you never know sometimes you end up with stuff that looks like that other times you can get some pretty good stuff so and then you see this and i'm like what and it doesn't look that bad until you pick it up and you can kind of get a good look at it so yeah that's definitely rather beat up so that is something i'll just take a look at and leave it where i found it a piece of abandoned tulip it's been quite a while since i've managed to find a tulip or two so hopefully today okay broken lightning milk all right so there's definitely stuff out here oh there we go there's a whole lightning milk all right cool oh i really like the pattern on that one oh darn well i would have kept it but it's a little bit beat up on the other side well let's take a look at this one let's see how this one looks that's nice and clean oh you know what though i think i can take care of that so the first one didn't pass the test but that one did it was really yeah i was hoping because it was just a piece but here we have a pen shell hoping for something a little more exciting all right another lightning milk all right cool looks like we are definitely finding florida fighting konks like this one and the lightning walks oh it's green but you know what i'm seeing some cool patterns on the top there a lot of that zigzag so i'm gonna keep it and i'm gonna try to clean that up and this one was just such a pretty color it's kind of like a tangerine yellow orange so i thought that was real pretty oh man now that's no i cannot resist that no way with that cool stripe with the patterns on it yep i'm definitely taking that one too let's see how that one cleans up as well there we go dang it all right well okay it's a banded tulip a little bit beat up on the one side but looks terrific if you hold it just so so i'm going to go ahead and keep that so this is so fun just kind of walking seeing what you can kind of see and of course your mind plays tricks on you something that looks like fantastic you pick it up and you're like oh man kind of like that that looks like i had a run in with a boring sponge oh well keep looking another florida fighting oh all right that makes it a lot easier for me it's broken not keeping it keep it moving so sometimes i can convince myself to keep just about any shell and i do have a soft spot for those florida fighting but when if it's if it's just too far gone it's just too far gone and now seems like a good time to maybe just relax and look at the view so it sure was a pretty morning so we're still kind of hunting looking for what we can find oh that would have been a fantastic big old shark eye never find good ones that big what else did i have all right a little lightning milk a little chip in it all right he's a little bit beat up probably won't hold on to that yeah another florida fighting conch a little bit worse for wear and another good day for lightning milks and florida fighting you never know what you're gonna find all right little piece of a muscle i definitely really really fun just kind of checking out all the different things turning it over digging oh yeah i saw a piece of some oh bummer that to me looks like a big old core of a horse conk oh well all right another floor oh oh that one's very pretty nice color i like that white stripe along the front there oh and an auger always check make sure there's no critters in there especially if you're shelling near the water looks like it's a keeper now isn't that lovely florida fighting conch all right oh there we go nice sized lightning milk fantastic i love on the interior you can kind of see some of those ridges oh very pretty and another florida finding oh he is so cool he's got some stuff on it actually looks like he is only not really quite knobbed that guy i'm going to show you one in a little bit i'll show you what i'm talking about all right that is just a piece of florida fighting kong all right calico clam i haven't seen one of those yet today he's not in that greatest shape so probably not going to keep that and there were some other tours so we are literally on a sandbar the only way to get over here is either if you kayak or take a boat over here and there were some other tours going on so there's just a few people but for the most part had the place really really to myself it was kind of awesome so at this point i figured i really haven't spent a lot of time up on this the land up on the beach so let's see what's up here hey hey that is an apple murex fantastic find what else we got all right a shark eye just sitting there wonderful all right now of course i'm wondering hmm maybe i should have been spending some more time up here on the beach all right here is a banded tulip a very very very beat up banded tulip so we're not going to keep that right away boom another all right let's see is that a shark guy or a gaudy nautica actually can't quite tell all right there is another banded tulip all right very cool a little chewed up that's okay looks great from that side and another apple murax fantastic all right just the top of a tulip all right left with that fantastic apple murex so all right like i said i'm pretty happy with what i'm finding up here on the beach a lot of times at least for me i'm thinking ah you know it's the easy the low hanging fruit it's the easy stuff for people to get so that's why i kind of like being in the water but never hurts to to peek right a lot of times picking up one thing is going to lead you to something else so i kind of like checking out as much as i can lots and lots of shells anything good oh a top of a shark eye tricked me you know i had to peek at it had to at least take a peek right so that is a gaudy nautica a colorful moon snail say a piece of a sand dollar another apple mirror x fantastic i feel like there's definitely stuff up here so i'm kind of taking my time all right a little beat up shark eye alrighty another gaudy yup another colorful moon snail oh yeah he's an okay shape i'm going to hold on to it all right a letter to olive it's got a little bit of shine to it cool pattern and a nutmeg terrific good old common nutmeg another letter to olive i love to check out first thing i do is check out see if it's shiny then kind of looking see if there's kind of cool patterns anything else kind of remarkable about it a lightning milk little olive and that's kind of you know when you see the light ones you always hope to find a golden olive but not yet what about this one nope regular old lettered olive empty fantastic oh i love this this is my favorite when there's just they're rolling around in the water there there is another terrific apple murex awesome what else are we gonna find rolling around i love it okay a banded tulip it's in great shape fantastic so happy with my banded tulip okay cool ah look at this that would have been really cool that is the top of a horse conch i don't have many of those like medium sized ones i got my big one a bunch of little ones so maybe i'll add like a medium-sized horse to my list of things to find that is a gorgeous banded tulip beautiful like the peach color oh wonderful all right so now let's talk knobs so i found this guy and this is a florida fighting conch and there it should really have a row of knobs but it doesn't now take a peek at that one in the upper left corner see how it has the knobs on that kind of like lower end where the one this brown one in the foreground there he does not so i just want to show you kind of cool always something to appreciate with all these little shells now this beat up little guy i believe is a chestnut ladderis and i've only ever found one so this would be the second one even though it's all beat up i'm gonna try to clean that up and it looks oh it's gorgeous okay another banded tulip yes and it is not all beaten up it's got a little tiny chip but i think that that is beautiful very very happy with that another okay a little chipped but it's let's take a look oh yeah real pretty awesome awesome banded tulip olive yep lettered olive oh a big fat one excellent oh they're great big fat littered olive awesome starting to pick up a little bit now oh it's beautiful okay that is also a banded tulip gorgeous peach color oh so pretty oh now yay now i'm really getting excited what else we got all right another terribly beat up apple muric's he's got all sorts of barnacles and just stuff yep i'm gonna keep it anyway though i know call me kooky usually i wouldn't but i don't know why just wanted to see how clean can i get that shell all right see something orange beautiful florida fighting oh look at that nope could not leave that behind beautiful florida fighting conch well friends at this point our trip is not over but we have been together a little over 21 minutes at this point so i'm gonna save the rest of the trip for next week but before we go i wanted to give you a little preview of this awesome spiny jewel box i had found isn't it cool i was so excited about that and there are other shelves that i'm also really excited about so i do continue to show i will find a bunch of goodies and real quick right before we go i wanted to show you how these guys cleaned up now remember this guy super green but there was a pattern toward the top of it that i was really really interested in the green didn't bother me i was pretty sure it would clean up okay and so this is what it turned out this is with some scrubbing soaking in 100 bleach probably for about a day or two and then a little bit of mineral oil so that's how that really gross slimy green shell turned out pretty happy with that and then there was one other one that was also curious this one was pretty beat up but i really liked the pattern that was on it so again same process it was a little bit of scrubbing soaking in 100 bleach and then a little bit of mineral oil now it didn't clean up as yeah it is what it is it is a little bit beat up but i really really like the patterns on it anyway so i took the effort and i am gonna add that to my collection so beach friends thank you so very much for coming along with me we will continue our shell tour next week i will show you all the goodies final wrap-up if you have um questions about the tour that i went on check the description box below i'll leave the information there so thank you thank you for coming along thank you for your support thank you for all your comments i hope you have a great week and i'll see you again next sunday