The Pen Shell Debacle

While walking on the beach in Anegada, I found a rare pen shell…a gorgeous translucent peach colored 6-inch long triangle shaped clam shell. I’ve only seen them in books, so I was delighted to find one on the beach. Our shell book stated that they implant themselves upright in sea grass anchoring themselves to the roots of the grass.  Immediately after this beachcombing expedition we set sail, so I tucked it under the table to “for safekeeping” Unfortunately, we store many things under the table, so later when assembling the sailing dingy the sail boards were placed on top of it and it cracked ever so slightly under the weight.

A couple of weeks later in Culebrita, I took to snorkeling the shallow seagrass beds in search of this illusive shell. I found one broken and one live clam. Generally my rule is not to collect live specimens, so I replaced it after showing it to the kids. Experience taught me for what to search, resulting in my finding a perfectly intact but highly corroded shell –covered in algae and coral.  I also found a smaller slightly damaged specimen. I am assembling enough shells to make a shadow box collection for each of the children as a momento of the trip.  I considered the task complete.

In Puerto del Rey, Linda the owner of Storm gave us a bottle of bleach that she didn’t need so it was time to clean our shells. They reek, especially those that have remnants of their former occupants. Internet instructions said to let them soak for a couple of hours to overnight. I loaded up a bucket full and after a couple hours they smelled normal, the colors were brighter and the algae for the most part gone. I had saved the precious pen shells for last. But I couldn’t find them. I had wrapped them in paper towels to protect them from further harm. It turns out that Tom, who rarely throws things away, mistook them for refuse left by one of the repairmen visiting the boat that day. Fortuantely we hadn’t taken the trahs ot and they were intact!

Sighing with relief I gingerly placed them in the bleach water just before we left for San Juan for an overnight stay. Upon returning 24 hours later,  I eagerly looked in the bucket. And what did I find? Nothing but a pile of sand.  The delicate shells had completely disintegrated in the bleach! How foolish of me not to realize the effect of this harsh chemical. So after several near misses, my own foolish actions had done them in. While the universe may be giving me a sign that it just wasn’t to be, I will continue to search diligently for pen shells in the weeks to come, and just maybe I will find the perfect 2 penshells.