In a recent trip to Honeymoon Island to surf small offshore surf on an incoming tide, I stumbled across a number of nice shells. It was no ordinary trip.

On this trip, after conversing with fellow beach-goers and shell searchers, I decided to stop by the Rotary Nature Center at Honeymoon Island State Park. I had heard they have educational information about the island including a shell exhibit.

I browsed the library of shells at the nature center to see if I could identify the shells I had found that day. I was able to identify all the shells I found on the beach with the resources they had there. In fact, I’ve found all the shells they have on their table shown above.  I’ve found almost all of them with the creature living inside, and just as the shell. I’ve held all of these shells except for the Junonia shell shown in the picture in the middle, bottom right.

The shell in that picture, the Junonia, is one of the collections rarer shells according to the park staff on hand, also someone who was in the process of training a guide dog for the park. This rarer shell in their collection reminded me of the one shell I’ve kept over the years, the shell in the featured image at the top. I’m not one to go searching for shells. Over the years I’ve been more interested in surfing, skimboarding, fishing, and many other water related activities.  One cold day of surfing while climbing out of the ocean, when the island was covered with rock, back before the t-groins were put in, I found this shell. I noticed many nice shells, and this one really stood out, so perfect and so unique. I decided to pick it up.  I’ve had it ever since.

Thinking about this shell I said, “What about all the shells that are more rare?” I was remembering the shell collection they used to have at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium when I attended summer camps in my early teens, what must have been close to 20 years ago now. The shell collection on display there has long since been removed. They had a great collection there of common and rare shells with their labels.  I asked the park staff, “Is there a good resource to identify rarer shells?” I was told about the shell expert they have there every month.  “This shell expert brings some of the more rare shells,” the employee said. Hopefully I can find out who it is that keeps an official record of shells official names. Maybe they’ll have a guide to common and rare shells so I can put together a more accurate and comprehensive shell guide.

The sea shell expert visits the island the fourth Saturday of each month at the Rotary Nature Center at Honeymoon Island State Park, between 1 and 4:30pm. If you’d like to see some of these rarer shells first hand, this is a good opportunity to see some of the unique shells found along our shores.