A Day in the Life of a Beachcomber

[Rcpilot]

Well I hope you have a safe move back to Colorado.

Thank you.

 

[Jay Norris]

Thank you.

Colorado for me is a great place to visit for a couple weeks, beautiful state, but it's to cold in the winter, and to far from the warm ocean and reefs.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

We moved to Florida in April 2018. We hate it and can't wait to leave. Hopefully, we'll be listing the house for sale in April or May 2019 and headed back home to Colorado. Worst case we're stuck here for 1 more year, but we are definitely leaving by April/May 2020.

Why do you hate it? There are a lot of places that aren't that great but from boca raton down is where I am hoping to move, close enough to where you can spend a day in the keys or snorkel nearby at least. I live near Washington DC so to me the people down there are moving at a much slower pace and much more polite.

 

[dbl]

Great write up Ron. One of these days I'm going to come up and do a walk with you my friend. Although I live less than a mile from the beach, it's amazing how different Sanibel is being only 45 minutes north.

 

[Rcpilot]

Apologies for mucking up the thread. We do enjoy walking the beaches very much, just never collected anything to bring home. Although it looks like fun.

 

[Victoria M]

Come on down, we still have empty lots to build on in Cape Coral!

BTW, to everybody who has enjoyed this article even a little bit, if you want to read more take a look here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/snorkeling-collecting-discussion-group.412414/

The thread says snorkeling & collecting, but in the winter we do beach walks instead of snorkeling. And we just posted new beach walk info and photos today. And I will continue to update that thread every time we do a beach walk.

Thanks for looking.

Just a wonderful read Ron, thank you.

 

[Goby-won]

Excellent read. You should have titled it “Treasure Hunting” I wish I lived somewhere I could do this. Maybe one day....

 

[Ron Reefman]

Apologies for mucking up the thread. We do enjoy walking the beaches very much, just never collected anything to bring home. Although it looks like fun.

You didn't muck up anything, everybody has their own opinion about the places they live.

I skied in Colorado. I attended an SCCA and a MACNA convention in Denver. I camped at Rocky Mountain National Park one night when I was 18 (on our way to California) and there was a light snow. We froze our butts in a pup tent, but the view of the Milky Way inspired my interest in astronomy!

If I wasn't living in SW Florida, I'd probably pick New Mexico or Arizona. But Colorado wouldn't be far behind. I love the desert and the mountains. And there are lots of places in Florida I wouldn't consider living. I hate crowded cities and screwed up traffic which Miami has in spades. But obviously millions of other people feel quite differently about it. But there isn't anyplace else in the US that I can snorkel coral reefs (other than Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands). And they all have issues aw well!

 

[ekoed]

This was a great read. I love those green clams!

 

[Ron Reefman]

This was a great read. I love those green clams!

I'm glad you enjoyed it and thank you for saying so!

The green clams survived in my tank for about a year. The issue is they are invasive here in Florida and foul up water intakes for the power plant. But they are nice looking and different from most of what we find on the beaches.

 

[dansreef]

What a great read. I live in Illinois where it is too darn cold, the taxes are crippling and the politicians are stealing us blind..... I am 3 1/2 years away from relocating somewhere warm to do exactly as you are doing. I have had a facination with the ocean since I was a little kid. I now have atleast 400 gals of saltwater reefs going in my house. I have all sorts of corals, softies and nems... to think walking the beach you can collect all sorts of stuff.... I would have a single tank that is full of stuff like you collect....if I could.

Thanks for sharing Ron.

 

[Ron Reefman]

What a great read. I live in Illinois where it is too darn cold, the taxes are crippling and the politicians are stealing us blind..... I am 3 1/2 years away from relocating somewhere warm to do exactly as you are doing. I have had a fascination with the ocean since I was a little kid. I now have at least 400 gals of saltwater reefs going in my house. I have all sorts of corals, softies and nems... to think walking the beach you can collect all sorts of stuff.... I would have a single tank that is full of stuff like you collect....if I could.

Thanks for sharing Ron.

Dan, thanks for letting me know you enjoyed the article.

The SW coast of Florida from north of Tampa down to Naples is very midwest relaxed and the east coast of Florida from Palm Beach to Miami is big city hussle and bussle. The Gulf of Mexico gives up shell and critters all the time. I think the Atlantic beaches have way less cool stuff wash up. Snorkeling in the Florida Keys is only 4 to 6 hours away from the west coast. If the beachcomber story got you going, look at the Snorkeling & Collecting thread linked in my signature below. BTW, in the next few weeks I'll be doing an article on snorkeling & collecting followed by lots of photos. And you don't need to be even a good swimmer to do it. About 95% of the snorkeling and 100% of the collecting we (my wife and I) do is done in water that is less than 4 feet deep and a lot of it is even in water that is only 2 feet deep!

 

[dansreef]

Thanks Ron. I love to snorkel and dive. To be honest, I love snorkeling the most for many of the same reasons you do. So far I have snorkeled the keys, the Palm Beach area, the Virgin Islands (US and Brit), Hawaii, and ...wait for it.... the lakes of Wisconsin. . I know, that sounds cold and not very interesting, but... in the summer it is pretty cool too.

As I type with the news on in the background, and many inches of the white stuff inbound, I am dreaming of Florida. I have my eye on the Sarasota area, maybe Siesta Key area for a trip in the next couple of months....as an escape from the cold and as a little reconnaissance for relocation at some point.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Sarasota is a very nice area. My sister-in-law lives there and I have a friend I made here on R2R that lives there.

I can see snorkeling the lakes up north, you never know when you're going to find something interesting. And I have sympathy for your current weather conditions as I lived near Detroit, MI for 30 years and did a fair amount of snow skiing. Then I got transferred to Columbus, OH where there is less snow, but they are much less adept at dealing with it! Yesterday was mostly sunny here and I drove over to Sebring to see some old friends who are still involved in racing cars. He won his class on Saturday.

We'll do our best to hang onto the wonderful weather here so that when you come down it will still be nice!

 

[Ron Reefman]

OK, today (Jan 21st) was a pretty good shelling day. Yesterday's cold front gave us the west winds that help make bigger waves that wash stuff up on the beach (we very rarely get west winds here) and the full moon (yesterday's eclipse) also makes for stronger low tide.

So we got up at 5:30 and were at the beach by 7am (low tide was about 7:30). Elaine and I play a game every time we go to the beach. "so how many cars in the parking lot?" Well, too many times we go at sunrise or when it's really cold after a front. Elaine guessed 2 and I said 2 plus or minus 2 will certainly cover it. Wrong! We made car number 15. And one guy was coming back to his car from the beach. He had on a hat with a bright light on it and he was carrying a bag full of shells. So I asked him when he got to the beach and he said, "Two hours ago and there were already a couple of cars already there when he pulled in!" We left at 10 and there were only 7 cars in the lot. And it was a pretty good shelling day.

So just for fun, one of the better eclipse photos. We're at the eastern edge of the 'totality' range so the upper left edge of the moon never really got red. I think it's cool that a couple of stars even showed up in the photo below the moon. Normal moon photos are brighter so the exposure time is shorter and I never saw stars in them!

So the moon was still up when we got to the beach.

And the sun was just lighting up the eastern horizon. BTW, that's my wife near the water also taking a photo of the 'before' sunrise! And you can see at 7am there were already quite a few people out shelling.

There were lots of good shells on the beach. Even lots of live shells and sand dollars which are both illegal to collect on Sanibel and Captiva Islands. There were very few sponges and I didn't see any of the soft orange ones that make great nurseries for tiny crabs, shrimp and sea stars. So all I collected was a big clump of red macroalgae. It's currently soaking in some aquarium water and I haven't searched through it yet to see if anything came home by 'accident'. But it looked pretty clean when I picked it up.

We were doing our Bailey Matthews National Shell Museum 'Shell Ambassador' volunteer work and I talked to about 10 or 12 people who came up and asked me questions. And none of them lives in Florida! A few were snowbirds, but they can't live here more than half the year.

I'll post up some shell photos after we get them cleaned up.