Recent Shelling Trip

About two weeks ago, I took Friday as a vacation day and my husband and I and our two dogs packed up and headed to our family beach house in Atlantic Beach, NC. We left on Thursday evening because we had big plans for Friday. We were going shelling and looking for driftwood.

It was a beautiful day but a windy one. We took the little Wahoo (boat) over to Shackleford Banks and then to Cape Lookout to go shelling. If you've never heard of Shackleford Banks, you are missing out! That's where there are wild ponies (small horses) that have lived there for hundreds of years. Word is they came over on ships that wrecked into the island.

Below is a short video of the ocean side of Shackleford Banks. No shells, so we loaded up in the boat and headed to Cape Lookout.

We rode past the Cape Lookout lighthouse and I snapped this quick picture.
We found a little cove sound side and walked a short distance over the sand dunes to the ocean. Below is my favorite photo that I took that day. And this photo was NOT staged in any way. We found lots of whelk shells and also scallop shells. I love shelling at Cape Lookout. Not all of them were in perfect condition, but they are still beautiful in my eyes. Also, all of the shells had vacancies thank goodness otherwise we would have put them back.

This is a Portuguese Man O'War that had washed ashore on the beach at Cape Lookout. I've never seen one on the beach like this. I was amazed at the color and size of this thing. The man-of-war's body consists of a gas-filled bladder-like float. It looked like a balloon at first glance. The float (body) may extend as much as 6 inches above the water. The tentacles can extend as much as 165 feet in length. They are extremely venomous and have caused a number of deaths. Not something I want to go swimming with. How about you?


We had a great day and found lots of shells. Here's what I've started creating with some of the broken shells. These are available in my Etsy shop.

Thanks for stopping by!