...sand dollars✓

I went on another adventure this evening, and ended up in the middle of the ocean. I was called off work, due to the lack of tourist in desperate need of an over-priced ice cream cone. This however was a blessing in disguise. I sat around for a while, sure that there was nothing to do. Eventually I decided to load up my backpack, hope on the scooter, and see if I could find something to do. I traveled down to the end of Estero Island, and over to Lover's Key. I left my backpack in the scooter, and decided to only bring my snorkel and a towel. I walked about a mile, and marked my spot on the beach with my towel, which was quite easy, seeing that there was no one else anywhere in sight. I spent about an hour just walking up and down the shore line looking for shells and little critters. I captured some great shots of some Oliva Sayanas, or "Lettered Olives" making trails in the sand.

After I had walked the same 40 feet back and forth for over an hour, I decided it was time for a swim, to explore what was beyond the shore line. It is very easy to snorkel here, there is a huge sandbar about 100 feet out into the water, and it creates and giant tide pool. I had to swim out a little bit past the sandbar once the tide started to go out too far. I found hundreds of sand dollars, most still alive, slowly crawling along the sandy bottom. I picked you up. Their "feet" feel like tiny little toothpicks, all moving together, trying to move along to find food. 

It was truly amazing getting to watch all these sand dollars crawl over and around each other, so very slowly. 

[a lightning whelk that I managed to take a picture of underwater.]

There were a lot of fish in the water, but none of which I could identify. I spotted a couple sea urchins out past the sandbar, but they were too deep to investigate. I looked up a couple times to check on my blanket, and I managed to only have one theft, an osprey had landed, decided to explore my findings that I had left on my blanket, and flew off with something in his mouth. I'm not sure what it was, but I must have had something tasty.

While I was snorkeling I found a lot of coral, none of it was alive, like a coral graveyard.  I found a small round piece that I liked, and I also decided to take the largest piece, that I could fit in and carry back to the scooter. I think I might try to make a lamp base out of this coral, maybe go back and bring home a few more pieces. Possibly stack them, like blocks, to form the base.

I also found a lot of starfish. They all appeared to be nine legged starfish, but I found one that wasn't.

☹