The morning of Mitch, as the wind howled in the trees, I strolled out to the
beach to find quite an assortment of folk spread out from the surf line back
to the beach. There were several brave barefoot men out shuffling in the
surf, feeling for horse conchs buried in the sand - and finding them!  A
fellow sheller pulled a huge, orange 20" specimen from her bag - it was
wedged in the inside group of "the Rocks".  She and I both found deep
wine-red tulips, sand dollars galore, moon snails as big as a fist, gaudy
naticas, brown and orange lightning whelks, alphabet and florida cones.  I
found an apple murex just as big as the one on display at the Shell Museum.
As each wave receded, more and more shells were uncovered. Most of the
fighting conchs were alive, so we did not disturb them - but I did find
several empty ones with purple inside. For several days afterwards, perfect
calicos, scallops and cockles washed up, with a huge quantity of apple
murexes -  and octopi! You couldn't put a shell in your pocket without
checking it first - there's nothing like reaching for your gum and coming
back with an octopus!