Sanibel Island, Day 4

When we got up this morning and looked out the window, we discovered that a turtle had crawled up right onto our beach in the middle of the night and laid a nest.  The official turtle people were already out there, marking it and staking it off.  Pretty exciting stuff!

Today was another day that I was particularly looking forward to.  We were driving off the island for our first time ever, to visit my friend Karen in Englewood.  I call Karen the  “Shark Tooth Hunter Extraordinaire!”  This lady knows how to find the shark teeth and that is something I wanted to try for the longest time.  We piled into the car at 7:30 am and headed to Englewood.  It took us about 2 hours, allowing for a stop to pick up coffee and another stop for gas.  It wasn’t a bad drive though.

Once we reached Englewood, we met Karen at the beach.  Here is a woman who knows how to roll out the welcome wagon.  She had set up a fantastic spot for us on the beach, complete with umbrella, chairs, towels, coolers, drinks and lunch.  Wow!! 

Before we even had a chance to start looking for teeth, Laurie and Wendy spotted this turtle.

Karen has the official shark tooth hunting tools – special basket device and a really cool screening device.  Don’t you just love my official terminology?  She took us down to the water’s edge and showed us how to sift for teeth.  It took us awhile to get the hang of it.  For every tooth I found, Karen found 15.  She really has the eye for spotting them. 

Everyone paid close attention to her, including this bird….

Chablis really liked the screen device....

But I preferred to just sit on the beach and sift through shell piles.  This one was my best find for the day.

For lunch, Karen introduced us to Cuban sandwiches, which were really good, hummus and chips, and brownies for dessert.  It was a perfect lunch for the beach. 

Afterwards we headed back to the shell piles...

 and then we got Karen to pose for a phooning picture.

Before we left to head back to Sanibel, we took Karen to find a geocache.  She was interested in our hobby so we went to find one that was close by.  Doesn’t Karen look like a natural geocacher?

We had such a great day with Karen – it was so much fun and we learned a lot about shark teeth.  I found about 70 pretty nice teeth.  Or rather, Karen found most of them and I helped!

Once we got back to Sanibel we ate dinner at the condo and then drove out to The Bubble Room to get a slice of Orange Crunch Cake for a little late night snacking. 

We were so tired from our busy day of shark tooth hunting that we didn’t even drive anywhere to watch the sun set.  We just sat on the beach and watched the waves roll in.