The shell seekers

We've been spending a lot of time collecting shells lately.  Brian has an especially good eye and his OCD - I mean, his excellent attention to detail - means he scours every inch of every pile of shells finding the good ones.  We've been experimenting with making jewelry from them for the fun of it, a previously obsessive hobby I haven't had the energy to pursue in a long time, and add to our collection every time we go to the beach.  It's starting to get a little out of hand but we seem helpless to stop.

It was a beautiful North Carolina coastal day yesterday and, foiled in a task we were trying to finish, we decided to go to Holden Beach, which is only minutes from the trailer.  We had lunch at Castaways, which was much more deserted than its typical summer crowds, then went shell hunting.  I finally remembered to bring a bag this time, instead of us stuffing them, wet and sandy, into our pockets.  I walked proudly with my grocery bag until I glanced up from my "Sanibel stoop" once and realized that we were sharing the beach with apparent professionals.  We were constantly surrounded by folks carrying mesh bags and scoops, small rakes and, in the case of one couple, what looked like ski poles.  The use of the mesh bags and rakes was fairly self-evident.  The ski poles still have me a little perplexed.  Maybe they thought the dunes would be larger.

One shell seeker walked up to us, her eyes on the sand as she inquired, "Was that an olive you found?"  Perplexed, we asked her to repeat herself, certain we had misheard. She glanced up but continued to scour the beach around us, her mesh bag dangling from one hand.  "Did you find an olive?"  she said, in an authoritative tone.  We were still confused, since we were pretty sure we had never found any kind of olive on a beach.  Then she explained that one of the shells we were finding was called an olive shell.  Ohhhhhhhh.  Brian is especially good at spotting what we learned from this helpful shell seeker is called a Lettered Olive Shell.  They practically jump into his hands and some specimens are so pretty they look like something you might pay good money for in one of the souvenir beach shops.  

The Lettered Olives are a favorite but I think my absolute favorite are the shells of the Moon Snail because the colors are so gorgeous.  Rich browns and soft pinks and yellows swirl into a central point that has earned it the nickname of the "shark's eye" shell, according to our shell seekers.

We've also been collecting copper wire from the scraps left by the electrician working on the construction of my aunt's house next door.  Brian recently bought me a tool set at Harbor Freight that we've been playing with too.  So we're both spending a lot of time learning to bend copper wire into pretty designs, grinding shell pieces into interesting shapes, and drilling holes into the tough calcium carbonate of the shells.

Today a cold front is moving in, and the temperatures are dipping from our beloved 80's to the 70's, and the plan is to get some more work done on the boat.