Friday, September 2, 2016

9/2/16 Report - Hermine Hits Florida Panhandle and Heads North. Treasures of Alligator Point and Dog Island.


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

Wind Pattern Friday.
Source: windyty.com


Hermine made landfall and is now working its way north.  Above you can see that Hermine will be pulling wind up over the Treasure Coast from the southwest.

I have the windyty site permanently linked on the first page of this blog under Wind, Surf and Waves.

According to the Washington Post, Coastal areas from the North Carolina Outer Banks to the Jersey Shore may well get slammed. Heavy rain, strong winds and dangerous surf are likely, with forecast confidence high for the Carolina Outer Banks but just moderate for the Delmarva beaches. A tropical storm warning is in effect for the Outer Banks and a tropical storm watch for the Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey beaches.  

I occasionally post finds from North Carolina that are contributed by readers of this blog.

Historic areas such as Cedar Key and Appalachicola received a very large storm surge.  After they attend to the damage, there will undoubtedly be some interesting metal detector finds in that area.

There are places other than the Treasure Coast that produce shipwreck treasures.  I have some personal history with Alligator Point, which I mentioned the other day and which undoubtedly got hit by the high surf produced by Hermine.

Here is a bit about Alligator Point from AlligatorPoint.org.

There are rumors that gold coins have been found washed up on Alligator Point and Bald Point. We have it on good authority that the pirate Billy Bowlegs Rogers buried three chests of treasure on Bald Point (the far side of Alligator Point from the house). He started out as one of Jean Lafitte’s men in Louisiana and later moved to Florida and fought in the Seminole Indian wars. Before that the British attacked and sunk his ship, the “Mysterio”, in the pass between St George and St Vincent Island, the wreckage was found in 1956, but no gold was reported. As the story goes he buried $6,000,000 worth of gold bars in clay jars on St George Island, we are sure he buried a lot more on Alligator Point. He is buried in Mary Esther, Florida near Eglin Air Force Base. Rumor has it that about 100 years ago grave robbers dug him up and found 2 pots of gold in the grave. Even more interesting it is said that an unusual looking tree in the cemetery was hit with an axe and silver dollars poured out. He was married to an Indian woman and may have taken his name from the famous Seminole Chief Billy Bowlegs. He lived out his old age in Northern Florida as a simple fisherman who occasionally did a bit of pirating.

Some other good stories including a 1699 shipwreck in a Hurricane that washed up on St George Island losing gold, silver, and cannons as it broke up. We have been told that artifacts have been found about half a mile east of the old lighthouse on Little St George Island. There are numerous other stories of gold, silver, and treasure having been buried on Dog Island and Alligator Point. FSU has an interesting website about real Dog Island shipwrecks.

One of Rob’s nieces found a British copper coin with a date of 1808 near the end of Alligator Point on the bay side. That’s as close to treasure as we’ve seen, but good hunting, we’ve sure it’s out there.

Here is the link to that web site.

http://www.alligatorpoint.org/about/fog0000000011.html

Here is a link to use if you want to read about Dog Island shipwrecks.


Source: nhc.noaa.gov
As Hermine leaves Florida, we still have something to watch.  Notice the yellow X working its way West.

We'll have a small surf until at least Monday.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net