One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach; one can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We went to the ocean today! Alligator Point (the beach closest to us) was BEAUTIFUL! The water was so clear! It was amazing. All the shells had gotten pushed up to the shore and we found some really pretty shells. But the most amazing thing we found was what was in the water....

Are you wondering what these are?..  They are sand dollars! Believe it or not.. these sand dollars are alive! We all walked out into the ocean pretty far out there. I picked up some sand, and I thought I felt something like a shell in my hand. It was a sand dollar! Ends up we were standing on a bed of sand dollars. We picked up a total of 33 sand dollars (that was just grabbing a few considering how many we really saw) It was the most amazing experience! We set all the shells out on the wet sand and  came  back to them later and they had partially buried themselves, trying to get back to the water. 

This picture is a little blurry! This is the back side of the sand dollar. Those are its little legs! So amazing:)

 

No.. we didn't keep all of them:( we just picked out a few that we liked, then let the others go back to the ocean! I have never seen anything like that before. It was so awesome! 

Tell us what you think!

Fiddling Crabs & Fishin'

We enjoyed an amazing journey this weekend. We went fishing, but, not with a boat. We walked out in the ocean about a mile when the tide had gone down. (Which was around 7:30) It was supposed to have been the best day to catch fish!

The crabs scurried around when we started walking, they were everywhere!

 Our friend that lives on the island told us that at certain times of the year, the road would look like it was moving because the fiddler crabs would be crossing the road. Why did the crabs cross the road?

Interestingly, they call them fiddler crabs because they look like they are playing the fiddle.

So Cute!!!

Turn your head- the pictures aren't flipping 

Where we were it wasn't really sand but kind of like mud. You have to shuffle your feet through the water so not to get stung by a sting ray. You'd think they'd be teasing. Not at all. Stingrays float right by you. That's why you shuffle your feet. If you step on a stingray they will come back and sting you! While shuffling your feet, if you bump in to one it will swim away. Another challenge is that you sink as you shuffle in to the mud. We were glad the water was only up to our knees at the most. One of the fishermen down here has gotten stung twice by a sting ray. 

Us shuffling our feet.

The professional fisher caught us some spotted sea trout, as for us we got bites but never got the fish to shore. We got some delicious fish the next dinner... 

We didn't get in to the house till 10:00pm. It was such a pretty site to see the sunset while in the water. 

Beautiful!!