Posted on 07/24/2020 12:27:29 PM PDT by Red Badger
An Ohio 11-year-old visiting Florida discovered what his family said might be a new world record for the largest sand dollar. Photo by mosaikweb/Pixabay.com
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July 24 (UPI) -- An 11-year-old Ohio boy vacationing with his family in Florida discovered what his family believes could be a new record for the world's largest sand dollar.
Syler Elliott, 11, of Newark, was visiting family in Destin when he took a boat ride with his father and uncle.
Elliott said he spotted a sand dollar under water and decided to dive 12 to 15 feet to retrieve it.
"I thought it was just gonna be a little thing," Elliott told the Northwest Florida Daily News. "I feel so happy and excited about it."
Elliott's family said the sand dollar is being kept safe in a box until it can be examined by Guinness World Records. They said it's about 6 inches in diameter.
The current world record holder for the largest sand dollar was found by Neko Wong, a British Columbia fourth-grader vacationing in Mexico. Her sand dollar measured 6.49 inches in diameter.
Elliott's grandfather, Ben Rodgers, said he isn't sure if the boy's sand dollar beats the world record, but he is certain it will be declared a new Florida state record.
"It's definitely gonna be a new Florida record, which we think is really cool," Rodgers said. "A kid from Ohio finds a Florida record sand dollar. Plus, being 11, he's not a professional diver; he just loves the outdoors. It's a whole series of neat experiences for us."
We grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida(6th generation Floridians,our kids are 7th generation, and now their kids who stay in Florida are 8th generation) On sandbars there might be dozens and they were easy to find, just feel around the sand with your toes.
There was no “conservation” info back then, I don’t think we even realized they were alive, we thought of them as shells, so we would take a few home. Once you took them home they would turn brown, I think a mild bleach wash kept them white, the purpose of bringing them home was for display in your room, or make a necklace, but they were pretty fragile for that. We knew there were 5 doves, but we didn’t want a broken sand dollar, so we never broke them.)
We always spent a couple weeks in the summer on a “staycation” at the beach. My dad still drove in to work everyday, and we’d stay at a rented cottage at the beach. It was the only vacation we could afford,because my dad could still work, but come back to the cottage once he was off, and do some surf fishing.
It was the only vacation we took for all of my growing up days. This was back in the 50’s and 60s and no big hotels at the beach, only a few. Mostly there were little cottages or duplexes. You put a pan with water at the front door so you could dunk your feet on the way in and keep from sweeping up sand as often.
Morning walks on the beach, we’d find all sorts of things, going inside everyday from 11-2 so we wouldn’t get “too” burned, surf fishing, collecting coquinas to make coquina soup, using a seine net and being amazed what we’d find, watching mullet fisherman pull in their huge net right up to the beach, going to bed with the small of Noxema on your sunburned shoulders and face, the sting of sunburn on your back, and feeling the gritting sand when you put your body into the sheets (no matter how hard you had tried to get it shaken out earlier in the day.)
Thanks for the sand dollar post, it was a walk down memory lane for me.
Worthless photo.
I’ve got a sand dollar that measures 5 1/2” by 5 1/2”. I bought it in a shop somewhere while I was on vacation.
Thanks for spreading His message. Thats just beautiful. Im certainly going to help spread that.
You can shake them out the hole in the bottom sometimes. If you know what youre looking for, you find them on the beach sometimes.
Im waiting for the sea unicorn.
The toughest part with sand dollars is getting them home in one piece. I collected many along the Oregon coast, at Haystack Rock.
Sand dollars are gray when you find them alive, or some lighter variation of that as they die. They are not white that Ive ever seen. It is very hard to find fully intact sand dollars that are that white. Im a little skeptical that he found a live sand dollar and wonder if maybe he bleached it to get it that white. Ive seen lots of people do that.
This article holds the world’s record for saying Sand Dollar without saying what a Sand Dollar is.
This has something to do with the coin shortage?
I may have one somewhere - I went through a seashell-collecting phase many years ago.
I’ll get around to checking that closet, someday. It would be nice to frame the shell with the little doves beside it, and the poem.
Silly picture, absolutely useless with no scale. It could be 1 inch in diameter.
Well, I was looking for a pic like that, too - I never knew that these things got larger than 2 to 3 inches.
But if you actually read the article, even the blurb here tells you the rough measurement, and the UPI article tells the largest one previously recorded.
It could be a record for Florida.
Fools, nothing in the pic to give it scale. Yawn
Huh. On the West Coast they are purple when alive. Just beautiful!
Not the same artifact as the original picture. Nice souvenir kid but I don’t get it?
Right, the sand dollars Im referring to have been in Florida on the Gulf Coast, anywhere from the Panhandle on down to Fort Myers. I havent gathered them in other places. I bet the purple ones are very pretty.
Great way to share the gospel! I heard a similar story about the Passion Flower, which has the three nails in the center, and the crown of thorns surrounding them. Our God is so awesome, reminding us of His love through His beautiful creation.
Your post was a walk down memory lane for me. You are probably the same age as my older siblings. Im a child of the very very early 60s, but because my siblings are older, I hear their remembrances from the 50s. Much simpler times. Im pretty nostalgic and sentimental, so I like to remember the pleasant things we got to do back then. It wasnt always good times, but there were enough of them to get you through the tougher ones.
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