Collecting Sand Dollars on the Silver Strand
We took a short vacation to San Diego this week. It was absolutely gorgeous out so we decided to stop by the Silver Strand State Beach to enjoy the ocean for a few hours. While we were walking the beach we noticed Sand Dollars all over. They are so cool looking we decided we wanted to find some whole ones to take home. We ended up spending hours looking for them while walking up and down the beach, it was so much fun!
Have you ever seen a sand dollar before? They are very fragile so it is rather difficult to find them in one piece. I guess they are also pretty rare and only found in certain areas. Lucky for us Silver Strand state beach is one of those areas!
We spent hours searching for them and found 10 that were still whole. We found all different sizes and a few different colors. I know its hard to tell from these pictures but they are many different colors. Some are black, some are purple and the rest are off white colors.
The term sand dollar refers to species of extremely flattened, burrowing sea urchins belonging to the order Clypeasteroida.
This is me on the on the Silver Strand beach!
This one has a shell sticking out of it! It is crazy looking.
These were the ones we decided to take home with us.
All n all this was probably the best time we had out of our entire vacation, and it was totally free! So like I always say, "the best things in life are always free, so stop existing and start living!" ;)
I love this! We have a beach near us that gives out sand dollars as well. :) We have found quite a few black ones before that are either dead or dying. If you take them home and leave them in the sun, they will bleach white and all the little tentacles will fall off. That's what happened to ours recently. I have thought about posting pics of them. Now I need to do that before the kids break them. ;) Looks like a great beach!!
I didnt realize when they dry up they turn white, thats crazy! I know they are rare so its cool u have them down there in panama too, i wonder if ill be able to find them in costa rica beaches at all? They are so much fun to look for while on the beach, i couldve done it all day if we werent on a time crunch. ;)
If you break open a dried sand dollar - little doves are inside. My great grandmother used to tell me a story to go along with it....can't remember now though.
I have never heard of that. Now i want to break one open to see what you mean! Lol.
Weird right! If you break it open - i'm sure they're just little bones or something - but they look like little white doves. Sometimes there's only one. Sometimes a couple.
Thats really cool, im gonna tell my fiance about this when she wakes up, we might be breaking one open today! Lol. Ill let u know if we do 😉
gift vote ;)
Thanks bro! :)
This was a nice post. The pictures were great. It reminds me of walking along the beaches in Michigan and looking for Petoskey stones. You should definitely break one open like someone else in the comments suggested. They do have little pieces inside of them. They are pretty cool little guys. Looks like you had an awesome time on your visit to the beach! -@bozz
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Beautiful!
I have only ever found one of those shells on our beach here in South Africa, the have such beautiful designs on them @moderndayhippie
That beach looks great and could easily be mistaken for one of ours on the other side of the world.
Yeah, they are a pretty rare find. I tell people to google to see if there are sand dollars on beaches near them. I know that sometimes they are only on one small section of a beach so they might be there u just havent found the exact place yet.
South Africa?? Ive always wanted to go there, i hear the beaches are gorgeous! 😊
Thank you for dropping by my posts! I wish for every sand dollars you can convert them into Steem Backed Dollars. Hahahha. Anyways, hope to see more posts from you! Good to have you be part of us. #steemitbloggers!
Lol, thanks! 😆
Glad to be a part of the steemitbloggers team, i finally feel like i am finding my place here on steemit.
That's funny. I live in San Diego and I don't know where the Silver Strand is.
Beacons in Encinitas is one of my beaches of choice. There's a long winding trail of switchbacks to get down the cliff to the bottom. It's worth it. I can walk about 100 yards south, and find a people free fishing zone.
All close to free. The annual fishing license, cheap rod and reel is all I need. :)
Well that sure sounds like an amazing spot you found there. A little piece of heaven all to yourself! ;) Like I always say, the best things in life are free! (or almost free if you gotta buy a reel/rod and licence lol)
The Silver Strand is by the military base there in San Diego. It is as far west as you can go, Id say maybe 10 miles south of mission beach but its kind of a pain in the butt to get to if you are like me and not familiar with the area at all. I think when we looped back around we came onto hwy 5, I'm sure if you google map it you will find it.. thats how i got there ;)
Ok. I know the area you mean. I'm up in North County by Pendleton. Grew up in Carlsbad and live in Oceanside. We have the strand in Oside, which is another nice stretch of sand, waves, and sun if you have the chance. :)
Unfortunately i have already left that area. I will write it down for next time tho.. there was way to much to do/see in one week so we will have to go back for another vacation. :)
Oh wow! I've never found a sand dollar on a beach before but I don't think they are at any beaches near me but if I'm ever in that area I am defiantly going to look & see if I can find some!
You should look it up on google to see if any beaches around you have them.. a lot of times they wont be at one beach but 5 miles away they will be at another beach. It was weird, they are all over the silver strand but not 5-10 miles up the road at the other beach we visited.
so cool! I used to live in LA and I never seen these on our beaches. Never seen in SD either!
Right!?! It blows my mind that some beaches have tons of them and then a beach 5 miles away won't have any.