Sanibel, FL–Seriously, with amazing sunshine and water softly lapping the beach, why would anyone want to go inside to a shell museum? After all, Sanibel Island is famed for its shell-littered beaches. Who needs to see them inside a museum? My advice: Make the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum your first stop on the island. Not only will you see hundreds of shells in every color of the rainbow, but you’ll learn about the creatures that live within. It makes a daily beach walk an educated marvel.
Catch the 30-minute movie on the mollusks, their life cycle and shells, and you’ll be able to pick out the different shells as you walk the beach at low tide. Exhibits in the museum display shell crafts, like sailor’s valentines and shell buttons, as well as re-create habitats of Florida’s shells.
After my visit, I knew how to spot a live shell (it’s prohibited to gather live shells that a mollusk still grows inside), to watch a Florida fighting conch propel by his foot, and look for the lightning whelk egg cases. I started looking at tide tables to know when would be the most abundant time to take a walk.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh noted in her 1955 book about Sanibel Island, Gift From The Sea, “Strangers smile at you on the beach, come up and offer you a shell, for no reason, lightly, and then go by and leave you alone again.” What was true in 1955 still happens more than 50 years later. One morning I wake early and leave my comfy room overlooking the ocean at Sanibel Inn. Wandering the beach, I clutch a handful of shells, thinking I’ll try to bring some back for my husband’s Chicago classroom. A man asks me if I found anything good and I show him my shell collection. He readily reaches into his net bag and offers me a tulip, lightning whelk, Atlantic fig snail and Florida fighting conch. Yes, a gift from the sea, but also a gift from a Sanibel Island.
