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In case you haven’t heard, Sanibel Island beaches rock when it comes to shells.
A Treasure Hunt in Nature
From the strange to the abundant to the ancient, the Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel offers a wealth of nature-exploring opportunities.
By Chelle Koster Walton
From the strange to the abundant to the ancient, the Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel offers a wealth of nature-exploring opportunities.
By Chelle Koster Walton
  Ghost crab |
No, you haven’t stepped into a Dr. Seuss book, this is Lee County, The Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel in Southwest Florida, where wondrous creatures past and present make a family treasure hunt better than fantasy.
Pan for Fossils
Begin your Lee County treasure hunt in the past. The way past. Hook up with Fossil Expeditions, operated by a paleontologist-author and his artist wife in Lehigh Acres. Mark and Marisa Renz take you paddling into the Caloosahatchee River, and other local waterways that once served as critter graveyards, in search of fossil sharks teeth and bones from some of Florida’s extinct early inhabitants, including mammoths, mastadons, giant sloths, rhinos and saber-toothed tigers. Expect to get wet as you snorkel or pan for treasures with a screen sieve in knee-deep water. Any historic or scientifically important finds go to the state; the rest of the booty you keep.
Go Shell-Searching
In case you haven’t heard, Sanibel Island beaches rock when it comes to shells. You can’t take a step without crunching down on a dozen or so. All you need is a bag and a bendable back to do the so-called Sanibel Stoop. A shell ID chart helps, or you can stop at Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum to learn more about your finds. (And to find out why the lightning whelk is called a left-handed shell.)
The islands above Sanibel also hold treasure troves but are less accessible because bridges they have not. Good news: that makes their shell hoards less plundered.
Adventures in Paradise, east of the Sanibel Causeway, makes your family’s entrée into the world of shelling fun and instructive with boat cruises to help you find and classify. The six-hour shelling and snorkeling tour aboard catamaran Dolphin Waters stops at the beaches of shelling mecca Cayo Costa Island and at North Captiva Island for lunch.
 Gulf frittilary butterfly |
It’s a type of treasure too precious to keep: Lee County’s bounty of sea, air and land critters sends treasure hunters home instead with incredible experiences to share. The list of wildlife-spotting possibilities goes on and on. Begin below the surface on a Dolphin & Sea Life Encounter cruise with Planet Ocean out of Fort Myers Beach. The naturalist aboard tosses a net into preserved estuary waters and empties the contents into a nice, big aquarium. There’s where you may meet the blue crab, which goes into pause zone when stressed out; or the punk-rock-looking sea robin, who can’t figure out whether to swim, walk or fly. Puffer fish, starfish, stone crabs, shells and myriad other living creatures end up in the aquarium for show-and-tell.
As a major stopover along a well-traveled flyway, Lee County counts bird species nearing 300, including great blue herons, ospreys, red-shouldered hawks, great white egrets and those comical roseate spoonbills, whose name comes from their pink spatulate beaks. To see them in their natural habitat – along with alligators, otters, and squirrels – do the boardwalk at Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve. Here the treasure hunting gets a little tricky, requiring high levels of quiet, stealth and keen observation. To help your family on your first attempt, tag along on a guided walk held twice daily from January through March, once a day in April, November and December and on Wednesdays only from May to October.
For the benefit of the less patient in the family, head down the road to nearby Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium, where butterflies, a bobcat, alligators, tarantulas, snakes and recovering injured birds are contained for easy observation. Stay for the live animal demonstrations and log on to be sure to learn what special programs are happening during your family's visit.
An empty shell, a bird feather (as long as it didn’t come from a protected species, in which case it’s against the law to keep), a shark’s tooth, a photo of a pelican and a wealth of knowledge about life in the subtropics. It’s been a successful hunt, but the greatest treasure, you understand, lies in the family time spent together and memories that you hold only in your hearts.
If you go...
Adventures in Paradise, 239-472-8443, www.adventureinparadiseinc.com
Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, 239-395-2233, www.shellmuseum.org
Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium, 239-275-3435, www.calusanature.com
Fossil Expeditions, 239-368-3252, www.fossilexpeditions.com
Planet Ocean, 239-765-1040, 239-765-5999, www.loverskeybeach.com/articles/Planet_ocean.cfm
Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve, 239-432-2004, www.leeparks.org/sixmile
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