Inside the pile of rocks at Delray Beach’s Anchor Park, there are hundreds of seashells, but most are broken, cracked, smashed or otherwise beaten up.
After all, they have withstood being scooped up from the ocean by heavy equipment, transported to shore, sifted in giant baskets and dumped in a public park. Still, every few minutes, a treasure hunter finds an unsullied remnant and places it in a tote bag or basket for safe keeping.
Dozens of people have been spending hours each day at the temporary pile, which opened on Feb. 6. Many come ready for a day of digging, bringing hats, sunglasses, gloves, shovels and cushions to protect their bottoms from the rocks. The pile, which has so far been replenished twice, consists of the leftovers from an ongoing renourishment project that is adding sand to eroded parts of the city’s beach.
“This is so fun, they should do this all the time,” said Amanda Centrone, 24, a Delray Beach resident who was at the pile for her second visit on Tuesday and plans to make a bathing suit rack of conch shells. “A lot of them are crushed, but they’re all unique.”
Jerad Biegner, a fossil hunter and shell collector from Lantana, shows off his best finds (which he keeps in a purple plastic Scooby-Doo lunchbox) during a visit to a temporary public shelling pile at Anchor Park in Delray Beach on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
The renourishment process extracts sand and other items from a designated area of the ocean and transports it to shore, city spokeswoman Gina Carter said. The debris is pumped through specialized baskets that separate the sand needed for the beach project from larger materials such as shells and rocks, not to mention sunglasses, tin cans and plastic pieces found in the water.
These vestiges are typically hauled to landfills for disposal. But this time, instead of throwing out the leftovers, Carter said Palm Beach County is incorporating some of the shell and rock into its parks and natural areas, and Delray Beach decided to offer the materials to shell enthusiasts.
Many of these hobbyists are showing off their finds on social media. One seeker found an assortment including the shells of olive, green star and alphabet cone snails, which she organized by size and shape. Another found what appeared to be a shark tooth.
Ainsley Batitista traveled from Jacksonville to look for treasures at Anchor Park in Delray Beach on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Jim Neville, 76, a New Jersey resident spending the week with his family in Delray Beach, was watching his three grandchildren comb through the pile on Tuesday. He said a fellow beachgoer told them about the trove, so they walked over to the park and planned to stay as long as the kids wanted.
“As long as we don’t find any human bones,” he said.
The treasure hunt in a rock pile, remnants of a beach renourishment project, is taking place from sunrise to sunset every day, while supplies last, at Anchor Park, 340 S. Ocean Blvd., Delray Beach. For updates, visit Facebook.com/CityofDelrayBeach.
