Heaven is a Place on Earth

Ok, so the title is slightly kitchy, but it came to me as Belinda Carlisle was singing to me on the way home from work today. Sanibel is heaven on Earth. It is one of the places that furthered my interest in marine biology growing up. We went to Sanibel and Fort Myers beach for vacation a few years when I was growing up and we loved it. I always thought when I moved to Florida that I would be living over there, but we never have. I hardly ever get to go, maybe once a year; it’s a good two hour drive from the house and we are often doing other things.

But, Sanibel is what beaches should be like—full of sea detritus waiting to be explored and poked through. I know I am one of the few, and I do know of others, but I love the smell of things rotting on the beach. Sargassum washed up—-yep, love it. Poking through dead sea urchins…oh yeah! I know, I’m weird, but it is such a good smell. It’s the ocean. The ocean doesn’t smell all floral and pretty, it’s raw and untamed.

Sea star—not star fish.

A live shell—gastropods (snails) build their own shells. When they die, hermit crabs use their shells for a home.

Not the first time I’ve seen something similar to this washed up on the beach. We saw a few pieces of it…I’m wondering if it is blubber of some sort?

A moon snail—not sure on the species. I need to brush up on my shells

Really, I’m pitiful with the identification

A bone we found near the unidentifiable blob…actually several bones. My thought was that they were flipper bones from a whale or dolphin.

Macro algae

I’m thinking this is a sea squirt of some sort or maybe a really odd looking sea cucumber.

The ocean has some beautiful treasures.