This is one of my favorite pictures from our trip at the beginning of the month to Florida. I took it on Thursday morning after we’d spent Wednesday night paddling around in a kayak outfitted with LED lights.

On our previous trip, two years ago, we took a snorkeling/dolphin viewing trip that was amazing. We stopped three times to snorkel around, seeing all kinds of cool fish, a manatee who wandered by, and they gave us a chance to find some shells. We came home with some pretty sweet shells, one looking very similar to the one in the picture.

We did do an outing like that on this trip, so we were told we’d be stopping to check out the local wildlife. I was pretty pumped up! As we poked around, we saw some sweet little fish, a couple of shrimp (they have eyes that glow orange at night), some crabs (both hermit and fiddler), and a sea slug! We caught a couple of different hermit crabs in much smaller shells. They were amazing as they didn’t just hide, they were actively trying to get away.

We didn’t find much for shells on our first two stops, but cruising into the third stop, my wife spotted this shell, just slightly into the water. She grabbed onto it and waited to see if anything was inside. When nothing came out, she handed it to me because i was the guy with the pockets (men’s shorts ALWAYS have pockets 😂).

We got back to shore, Ubered back to the hotel, and started getting ready for bed. As my wife got into the shower, I took out all the shells we found and put them on the microwave. I went to grab a change of clothes, and when I came back toward the bathroom, our shell had moved! I expressed this in no uncertain terms to my wife, still in the shower. I didn’t get a picture of the little bugger in the shell, but he was a good sized hermit crab and he was in my pocket for at least an hour! EEK!!

Anyway, I showed him to my wife and she was, “Hahahah, he was in your pocket!” Thanks, thanks a lot honey! Grr!

So, he slept in the sink overnight, and when morning came, he and I walked to the beach and I snapped the above picture. I didn’t know if he’d pop out or not, so I set him on the beach, and a couple of people wandered by, asking to take a picture of the shell!! LOL!!

As it was, he stayed hidden and eventually, a wave grabbed onto him and pulled him out in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thus, the shell and a story! 🙂