Elbow mc wrote:
>
> (This was written using voice-recognition software. It's more Emily Latella
> than  Star Trek, and has been known to embed weird things in the text. So, if
> you are getting numeral ones instead of apostrophes, for example, I apologize.
> Do not adjust your set. The problem is on this end.)
>  *******************************************
>
> My name is Ellen Bulger, and I'm fairly new to this list. I confess I've been
> "lurking" these last few weeks, just reading all your posts and enjoying them
> immensely.
>
> I've always loved natural history, especially marine biology, albeit at the
> hobbyist level. I live in New Haven, Connecticut. I suppose there are
> marvelous shells to be found on Long Island Sound, but the limited diversity
> is a bit of a bummer. It's been during visits to the Bahamas, North Carolina
> and Florida that I've done my bit of collecting.
>
> It's only recently that I decided to immerse myself mollusk-wise. I was on a
> liveaboard dive boat in the Bahamas. We dove off Conception Island, Rum Key
> and San Salvador. The diving was splendid but, it's illegal to collect when
> you're using scuba. (Anyway, I don't do the live shell thing myself.) The long
> and short of it was that we got hardly any beach time and I found myself going
> into shell withdrawal.
>
> When I got home I started pouring through books, trying to give myself a crash
> taxonomy course. I've been sorting and sorting and puzzling my way through
> these baffling limpets.
>
> And I am thrilled to have discovered this list.
Welcome aboard and just want you to know that it is legal to collect
shells all over the Bahamas by SCUBA.  We do it many times a year. I
don't know where you got that information...except some dive boats
restrict it.   But it is only be inforced by dive operators not the
Bahamas.
--
Jim & Bobbi Cordy
Specializing in Self-Collected
Caribbean & Florida Shells