The Things That Wash Ashore

We've had some massive wave action lately. The waves bring up all sorts of interesting things from the ocean depths...

Sophie and I stumbled upon this Kraken at our favorite shell beach last weekend.

It's actually a sea star with way more than the usual 5 legs. I wasn't sure if it was alive or dead, and I sure wasn't going to touch it to find out! I was almost afraid to put my poor shoe that close to it. 
And these unusually large shells were just sitting on the sand waiting for me:

The white one is about 3 inches long, but I don't know its name. The brown one is a Snakeskin Cowrie. We find lots of small ones, but this is the largest and prettiest Cowrie we've found.

Aloha y'all!