Monday, December 5, 2016

12/5/16 Report - More on the Ribault Fleet. Alternative Hunting For Poor Beach Conditions.


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

Results of a Quick Saturday Bottle Hunt.


On 12/3/16 I did a post that mentioned a shipwreck discovered off Cape Canaveral that France is claiming as part of the French fleet that in 1565 went to the aid of the colony at Fort Caroline.

On the wreck was found a stone marker possibly used by some of the earliest French explorers. France is seeking rights to the wreck despite the fact that it was located by Global Marine Explorations and has not yet been positively identified. 

Jon Morgan, who conducts interviews on metal detecting and treasure hunting did a podcast with Terry Armstrong of Signum Ops, which publishes a number of books on treasure hunting, some of which deal with the Treasure Coast and the 1715 Fleet.  One of the books published by Signum Ops was authored by Doug Armstrong (no relation of Terry) who the Armstrong Site is named after.

You can listen to Jon's podcast with Terry Armstrong by using the following link.


Here is an article about an earlier attempt to find the Ribault Fleet.


I know I didn't tie all of that together for you but there are so many threads that it would have taken me forever, and I just wanted to put it out there for those that might be interested and assuming that some of you would know how it all fits together.

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Two or three days ago I did a post on an antique bottle that I found.  As a result of that find, I went out bottle hunting again yesterday and did quite well.  In fact it was the best bottle hunting day that I had for quite a while.

At the top of the post are some of the bottles that I found.

There are two especially interesting bottles in that group.  One similar bottle sold in 2015 for $75.  Another sold for $25.  I haven't researched all of them yet, and I have more research to do on all of them.

When I found the one old bottle the day before, that bottle served as a sign that conditions might have improved for bottle hunting, and that proved to be true.

Some finds are most valuable as signs or indicators.  It doesn't matter if you are hunting cobs, bottles or fossils or sea glass, if you find one, there are often more.  A find might not be valuable, but it might provide valuable information.

Another lesson is that when conditions are not right for one type of hunting, they might be right for another type of hunting,  When conditions are not good for hunting treasure coins, the conditions might be just right for hunting something else or hunting some other place.

Don't get too narrow about what and where you hunt.  When cob hunting, is not good, you might consider doing something else.  Don't get stuck in a rut.  Be flexible and adjust.  It is a fortunate fact that the conditions that make hunting poor for one thing makes conditions good for hunting other types of things.

Much of it depends upon the movement of water and sand or soil and the materials that might be in the area.  I've described much of that in the past.

I included a couple broken bottles in the picture.  They aren't valuable, but they were good indicators.


Above is the broken bottle.  As you can see the bottle held a cure for jaundice.  Again, the bottle is broken and isn't worth anything, but it told me (1) that bottles were surfacing, and (2) that older items were in the area.  That kept me going.

I don't entirely predetermine what I am going to do on a hunt.  What I do depends upon what I see.  I'm always looking for signs and indicators.  If I saw no promising signs, at some point, I would have quit what I was doing and tried something else.  But this broken bottle kept me on the track.

The next thing of significance that I round was the small ink bottle.


Again, this is not a valuable bottle, but it was another sign or indicator that kept me on the track.  

You don't always find bottles where I was looking.  I haven't seen old bottles there for quite a while, but the broken bottle and the ink bottle were very good signs, and they indicated that more might be nearby.

I'll follow up with this in the future and show some of the better bottles.

I gave you several reminders.  Always be looking for any type of sign or indicator, and be flexible. Adjust according to what you see. 

Learn about different types of finds and different types of hunting.  That way if conditions are not good for one type of hunting, you have other alternatives to keep you busy until things change again.

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The surf will be small for a few days.  No improvement in conditions during that time.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net