Treasure Coast Beach at Low Tide Yesterday Morning.You can see the sand bar and the dip next to shore.
As I mentioned, I have a couple of wounds that need to heal but went to the beach and took a leisurely walk. I tried to take it easy on my foot injury but probably still did more than I should have. Anyhow, I didn't detect, partly because conditions were poor and partly because I simply wanted to take it easy.
Anyhow, I did a little eye-balling. It is important to scan a beach visually even if you are detecting. You might notice some important clues, and you can actually find cobs and artifacts visually. Yesterday all I was expecting to see was the type of materials that often show up with shells, and that is what I found.
I think it is good to practice eye-balling. I believe it is a skill that can be developed to a high degree. You can learn to notice unusual or unnatural objects, by color, shape, and surface texture. I've eye-balled almost every type of item that I've ever found, including, cobs, gold jewelry, etc.
Here is a video showing a fossilized tooth that I picked up yesterday while walking the beach. I think it is probably from an Ice Age horse or similar mammal. I can't really tell which animal it came from because it is worn down from tumbling in the surf. Camel, bison, mastodon and giant sloth teeth have all been found in the same general area.
I was experimenting with my video cam and trying to develop video skills. Yesterday I made a video of what I saw as I walked. My field of vision is actually much wider than the visual field of the video camera, but I think I can share a little of the walk even though it was one of my first tries and I didn't focus at the right spot very often when I picked up an object. I'll do better in the future.
I uploaded the video clip that is nearly eight minutes during which time I picked up four or five fossils and a few pieces of sea glass. If you take a look at the clip, you'll see where i picked up a brown piece of sea glass around the six minute mark, a fossil at around 6:38 and another fossil around 7:24. I point those three out because I did a decent job on those, and you can see the objects that I picked up.
Earlier in the clip when I bent down to pick up the objects, I tended to have the camera pointed too far up and to the right. As a result, you'll almost always see any object that I pick up in the bottom left corner of the video frame if you see it at all.
When I get this down, I can make some nice videos, hopefully when the conditions improve enough to pick up some cobs or something more interesting.
Here is the long video if you want to take a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4o6w77Ibac
A 380 year old canoe found in Arbuckle Creek is now on display at the Polk County Nature Conservancy. If you want to read more about the canoe and it's history, here is the link.
http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2011/may/20/archeologists-preserve-ancient-canoe/
There is a cannon ball and mallet head for sale on eBay said to be from the Anchor Wreck. You might be interested in the little write up that goes with the item.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Munitions-Spanish-1715-Plate-Fleet-/160593611617?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2564200b61
Treasure Coast Beach Detecting Conditions and Forecast.
The wind is still from the southeast and the seas calm. You'll find a lot of sand and shells with some sandbars and dips near shore.
I showed today that even when conditions are poor for finding cobs and the like, you can still find stuff on the beach. Also look for clues. Pieces of black glass or olive jar shards can tip you off to a nearby wreck.
One of my favorite finds was eye-balled during poor detecting conditions like this. It was a wax seal with the impression of an eagle on it found laying right at the edge of the water.
As I often say, when conditions aren't right for finding one type of thing, they are good for another.
The surf web sites still predict increasing seas about Sunday and into early next week. The peek will be only about five feet, which is normally not enough to significantly improve beach detecting conditions, but there have been times when it was enough to cause some nice localized cuts and a few nice scattered finds. I doubt if it will be enough to improve conditions that much this time. The beaches have a lot of sand to be removed, and there are bars in front of the beach that will protect the beach front.
I'll work on my video techniques so I can produce some good videos when things start to improve.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net