The Sanibel Stoop

Now, you can't come to Sanibel and not talk about seashells — because this island is famous the world over for them, and there's a whole culture, and one hard law, that comes with it. Let me tell you.

They say Sanibel is one of the best shelling beaches on the entire planet, and there's a real reason why, written in the map. Most barrier islands run north and south, along the coast. But Sanibel, by a quirk of geology, lies mostly east and west — it sits sideways, its long bottom edge facing straight out into the Gulf like a great scoop. And so when the Gulf's currents and storms sweep shells toward shore, this island catches them, piles on piles of them, thousands at a time, in a stunning variety — lightning whelks, conchs, cockles, scallops, the delicate paper figs, the prized junonia that shellers dream of finding.

And the people who come to hunt them fall into a posture so universal it earned its own name: the Sanibel Stoop. You'll see them all up and down the beaches at dawn, bent double at the waist, backsides to the sea, eyes down, shuffling along scanning the shell line — the Sanibel Stoop. Some folks joke the island's other nickname ought to be a chiropractor's paradise.

But here is the one rule you absolutely must know, because breaking it is against the law and they enforce it: you may collect empty shells all day long — but you may NOT take a LIVE one. If there's still a critter living inside that beautiful shell, it stays. Same for live sand dollars, live sea stars. The island passed a law against taking live shells to protect the very creatures that make the beaches so rich, and the fine for a pocketful of live ones can run into hundreds of dollars. So the rule of thumb is simple: look inside, and if anybody's home, put it back gently where you found it. Take the empty ones, take a thousand photographs, and leave the living to keep making more. Happy stooping, friend. Roll on.