8/3/12 Report - Search for the Lost Merchant & Tropical Storm Ernesto

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

National Hurricane Center Map

I'll start with the weather today since the Atlantic is starting to get so active.  The biggest news is that Tropical Depression Five has become Tropical Storm Ernesto.  And Ernesto is predicted to become a hurricane.

If you look at the map below, you'll see that Ernesto is still expected to proceed south of Cuba and into the Gulf, turning into a hurricane near Jamaica.

There are two other areas to watch too.   First, an area over the Bahamas that is not expected to develop much in the next couple of days, and second, another disturbance coming off of Africa that has a 30% chance of developing into a cyclone in the next 48 hours.

Despite all of the activity now, the surf web sites are not predicting much change in our local surf conditions for the next few days.

Seas are now running only around two feet with the wind coming from the South.  Low tide today will be around 3:45 this afternoon on the Treasure Coast.

Side Scan Sonar From the Mel Fisher Organization.

From the Mel Fisher organization via email.    Searching for the exact location of the 1600s wreck of the Lost Merchant, the crew of the Dare has surveyed over 68 square miles of sea floor.  They have located two wrecks, both of which appear to be modern.  Above is a side scan sonar showing one of those.  Notice the strange square objects.  Side-scan sonar and magnetometer surveys continue while the HUAV is readied

Archaeological excavations of a Civil War site at Williamsburg seems to suggest that Civil War soldiers played a lot of marbles.   The article is about a lot more than that.

Here is the link.

http://www.vagazette.com/news/va-vg-wm-find-0801-20120801,0,7210831.story

Among the most common beach gold finds are plain bands.   They are often clearly marked with a variety of information, very often a date.   Here is one typical such find. 

14K Beach Find

The date can actually tell you something about where the band was made.  How?  If the date on this band read 16-4-66 instead of 4-16-66, that would tell you the band was probably from a country other than the US.

The following countries use the day/month/year format.

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil , Canada, Catalonia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, UK.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net