Manginhas ta! Seashells and Sea Snail Adventure

Hello dear hivers! It's another weekend to relax and enjoy. I hope you all have a great time.

For this blog I'm gonna take you to a seashell and sea snail hunting. Are you go? We are go! 😜 [I am just being silly!😅]

Our town has been blessed with the abundance of the sea. The rich variety of marine life has provided the locals with a way of living. Fishing and sea shell and sea snail hunting put food on the table for most household.

In our barangay and the barangay adjacent to us is where you can find a reef being exposed during low tide. And this is where we went to go hunting for seashells and sea snails together with my friend @labanez. We call it hunasan.

I can't remember when was the last time I did this fun but meticulous adventure even though this place is just a few meters away from our humble abode. It's been a long time and I miss it. Maybe because it's more enjoyable when you are with someone who you can share your excitement as you find and discover some of these unique marine creatures.

Our goal was to find sea snails and sea shells that are edible. @labanez wanted to have a taste again of a delicious seafood recipe out of seashells and sea snails we could find. She miss it so much since she is working in the city and only get to go home during the christmas season.

We checked the calender when is the exact time the tide is at its lowest so we could be sure the reef is exposed. And sure enough, behold the beauty of this wonderful creation.

As soon as we set foot on the reef we started hunting for seashells and sea snails. Looking for them isn't that easy. They comouflaged perfectly to the rocks so you need to have a good eye and intuitive ability to find them. 😅

So here are some of our finds...

Seashells and Sea Snails

I will just name them according to how we call them in our dialect. Some of them, we don't have a specific name and we just refer to them as kinason.

This is the easiest find we had. We call this seashell bilat bato. It can easily be found since they attach themselves to the reef and most of them are in group. To get this shell you need to use a stick or knife. We had a handful of this shell.

Our most favorite is this sea snail we call aninikad. They are harder to find because they coumouflage so well with the rocks. The usually lay on the sandy part looking like small rocks. Unfortunately, we rarely found them during this time. These are the tastiest seashell finds here.

We also found this round, spiral with spikes sea snail. I don't know the local name of this but as I look it up in google lens, it is called spurred turban snail. Also a very hard find. You got to have a scanner-like eyes to know this one is a shell.

This seashell looks like a boomerang. They also attached themselves to the rock. Be careful as you pull it so you won't boomerang to the rocks. 😅

Among the sea snails are hermit crabs that can be deceiving. They take the sea snail's shell and use it as their shell. They can be frustrating when you think you found a snail but only to find out its an hermit crab. These crabs are not edible so we just throw them back to the water.

Sea Stars, Sea Urchins, Crabs and Some Creepy Looking Creatures

Very common find in a reef are sea stars. We found this blue sea star and a brown sea star. Maybe they are those star that fell from the night sky. Don't you think?

This sean urchin looks so intimidating. I kept my distance because I might step on it. The spikes looks hard and very sharp.

Can you spot Mr Crab?

This creature looks creepy. It looks like a very thin sheet but it moves fast. It can enter into very narrow holes because of its felxible body.

Another find that made me jiggly just by looking at it is this sea hare.

After about two hours of seashell and snail hunting, we were able to fill the pail. This was such a satisfying to experience.

I am still thankful that this reef is still so full of life. But as I noticed it was less lively than the last time I went here. Not sure what caused it. Maybe the climate has something to do with it or maybe too much human activity on this area.

Have you tried seashell and snail hunting? If you did, how was the experience? Did you enjoy it too?