Thursday, January 20, 2011

sanibel island: day 3


before sunrise today i was the only person on the beach. i could barely see anything. the tide was fairly low, and as i was slowly wading in the warm gulf i suddenly saw a dark object in the water. was it a fish or a piece of flotsam? even better! it turned out to be the best seashell i have ever found....a perfect 10 inch horse conch shell without a mollusk inside. (on sanibel it is prohibited to take any shell with a live animal. i ask you, who could ever do that, kill a mollusk and take its home?) 

the conch was covered in brown seaweedy gunk and smelled like a combination of an outhouse and a sewer, but after a couple soakings in bleach and water, and a little scrubbing, it smelled clean, and its nice white and tan lines and sprinkling of barnacles were gleeming. best of all, back here in maine i can put the conch up to my ear and remember the sound of the warm blue gulf as i look out the window at a frozen white sea of snow....and more snow is on its way.....

2 comments:

alexandra said...

I'm loving the Sanibel posts. I hope to see some pictures with people in them at some point! We modeled for a few I seem to remember. Haha. Also, is Kevin's picture from the golf course going to appear anywhere?

Ed James said...

Hearing the sounds of Sanibel inside the shell? Arghh! I want to go there. Keep that shell away from me.