10/4/18 Report - Sheathing on Early Ships. Treasure Coast Beaches. Erosion at One Beach.

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

Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

With the rougher surf we've been having lately, I've been checking the beaches more often for you.  Very little has changed.  Even though the surf has been bigger, the waves have been hitting consistently from the east.  As a result, we've had almost no erosion.

There is still seaweed and the beaches are pretty mushy.  At John Brooks, and I suspect elsewhere, there was a little more scalloping.  

The surf this morning didn't look any more than six feet to me.  Maybe it will get higher later.  

Surf This Morning a Little Before Low Tide.

I just looked at three beaches on South Hutchinson Island this morning.

Breaking Swells.

At Fort Pierce South Jetty Park, there was some erosion and one fellow was metal detecting.  There were a good number of coins and a few other things.

Erosion South of Fort Pierce Jetty.

As I mentioned the other day, you can find erosion around rocks and other obstructions.

This sand is new renourishment sand but still there were good numbers of coins.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Leslie is still hanging around but won't affect us much, other than sending some more of the same.

The system down by Central America could come up into the Gulf.  That remains to be seen.

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Two Large Crumpled Pieces of Copper Sheathing Dug on the Treasure Coast.

I've talked about sheathing used on ships before and wanted to post something I found in a book I've been reading -  Six Galleons for the King of Spain by Carla Phillips.

… To protect against shipworms, tarred cloth and a thin layer of lead sheathing were often nailed to the hull below the water line.  As a final step, the entire hull was coasted with a  mixture of tar and some of grease...

I've talked about the transitions in sheathing before and I've shown some dug lead sheathing as well.  It is not uncommon for cloth marks to be found on the lead.

The six ships discussed in this book were built between 1625 and 1628.

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We're still supposed to have more high surf, but I'm not expecting much improvement in beach detecting conditions.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@ comcast.net

9/15/18 Report - Florence Finds Beginning To Come In. Nice Treasure Coast Shipwreck Artifacts On Display. 83 Foot Wave!

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

Couple Florence Finds From the Treasure Coast.
Finds and photo by D. Renken.

I received an email with photos from D. Renken, who just found the above fake treasure coin and copper sheathing.  When you dig a fake like that, your first glimpse gets you excited before you realize that it is a fake.  D. R. said he quickly recognized this one as a fake.

He also sent me photos of a large sheet of shipwreck copper that he found some time ago (below).  He made a great wall display out of the copper and some spikes and nails.

Wall Display Of Shipwreck Copper, Lead, Spikes, Nails etc.
Finds and photo by D. Renken.

The large copper has a makers mark on it, which D. has been trying to identify.

Makers Mark on Copper Sheathing.
Photo by D. Renken.

If you can help identify the mark, please let me know.

That is the kind of display I highly recommend.  You will get more pleasure out of your finds if you clean them up and make a nice display.  This is a beautiful example.

Thanks for the photos D.

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I need to clarify something I said yesterday.  I said something like, I'm not a serious detectorist anymore.  I only meant that I don't detect a lot.  I didn't mean to suggest that I lost interest.  I am every bit as interested in detecting as I ever was.  I just don't get the opportunity to do it much.  I now have responsibilities that keep me from going out a lot.   I very much regret not being able to hunt more.  As a result I have to make the best use of my limited time in the field, which makes it even more important to make the most efficient use of my time.  That means I study to improve my effectiveness even more.  I also spend more time studying finds, and have learned a lot that way.

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83 foot wave?  Wow!

https://www.wptv.com/news/local-news/water-cooler/hurricane-florence-creates-monster-83-foot-wave

Thanks to Jorge Y. for that link.

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Mystery Find.
Find and photo by Scott C.

Scott C. found this item on one of the Treasure Coast shipwreck beaches and wondered what it might be.  He provided no indication of size.

To me it looks like a buckle, or perhaps a drawer pull.  What do you think.

I have no idea of age.  If it is cleaned up, there might be a mark.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Looks like Florence will be turning and heading into the Ohio Valley.

Isaac as dissipated.

Joyce and Helen will stay far out in the Atlantic.

Maybe we'll get some good Fall storms.  It is not uncommon.   Florence didn't really do much for us despite the high water.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

The surf has calmed down but will increase to three to four feet by Sunday.

I have a few more finds to show later.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/11/16 Report - One Of The Oldest Hurricane Matthew Finds and A Couple Others. Matthew Erosion.

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

My Oldest Find From Hurricane Matthew

This item is thousands of years old, perhaps tens of thousands.  I hope Fred Dengler will tell me for sure.  His email didn't seem to work the last time I tried it.

It is definitely a fossil tooth.  I believe it is that of an extinct horse.

Did you know that horses migrated from America to Asia and Europe and then died out in America before they were brought to America by the conquistadors and explorers?  

I did find other fossils.  They are definitely the oldest finds I made in the past few days.

Piece of Copper Sheathing Find.

Finds that were not so old were made as well.  Above is a piece of copper sheathing, for example.

I need to clean up some other things before making pictures.

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It seemed to me that the water hit and eroded the dunes.  In most places it was only eroding renourishment sand rather than getting into the old sand.

There was one place. as I already said in a previous post, where the sand that was uncovered was old sand.  In fact, I don't believe that sand had been exposed since the 1970s.  It had been buried under tons of renourishment sand.

After the dunes eroded that sand scattered onto the beach.  Either before or after that, the beach front eroded, however after that new sand washed up onto the beach front.  That washed up sand only covered the front of the beach.

Just in front of the dunes, several inches of light-colored renourishment sand covered older brown/red sand.

A similar thing seemed to happen along much of the Treasure Coast and most of the beaches.

Areas of erosion could happen at any time this week with the higher surf and northeast winds.  There is a good northeast wind this morning.  All it takes is for the waves to hit an area at the right angle under the right conditions,  Erosion can be limited to certain beaches and small areas.

I'm maintaining my 2 beach conditions rating, which I think will remain in effect for a few days.

I haven't heard of may finds yet, but will do a poll, maybe after this week.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/23/14 Report - Important Meeting, Changing Laws, A Couple Wreck Sites, and Discrimination

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

Copper Sheathing After Wood Wreck Has Disappeared.
Source: Cover of the NOAA study referenced below.

I need to address something important today, and there are only a couple of days remaining to do it.

I need to alert you to an important meeting this Friday.   Below is a flyer with details that I received by email from Wes B. 

Note the time and place given in the last paragraph: Friday April 25 at 5 PM at FIT in Melborne.

If you want to know what could happen with wreck salvage under Federal law you might want to attend.

As background, here is a link to an overview study funded by NOAA entitled Underwater Cultural Heritage Law Study, 2014-005.

http://www.data.boem.gov/PI/PDFImages/ESPIS/5/5341.pdf

You might want to browse this for multiple reasons.   First, it gives a good overview of the relevant law, explaining, for example, the Black Swan case that resulted in Odyssey Marine returning salvaged materials from the Mercedes to Spain.  You might be surprised by how much is covered by this body of law and how far reaching it can be.

If you don't know why global warming is so important to some in politics, take a careful look at this study.  In this study you will see links to references explaining how oil companies and other private energy related companies first discovered three 19th Century shipwrecks and then funded government archaeological investigations of those shipwrecks (See photo below). Issues such as pollution and global warming provide much regulatory and financial leverage for government activities and touch almost everything you do from flushing your toilet to the batteries you use to power your detector.

Maybe you thought NOAA was all about weather.

You might not feel like reading the entire study, but at least browse through it.

You might want to take a look at the section on Common Law of Finds.  The concept of "abandonment" seems to be overlooked, as I would define it.  When is something "abandoned," and when does a ship cease to exist?   It would seem to me that a pile of unidentifiable or barely identifiable wreckage is no longer a ship.   Definitions are important.  They can be used and abused.

The Ewing Bank Wreck Photomosaic by Dan Warren, C&C Technologies.

Here is something that isn't quite as heavy.  See if you can guess what the following is?  It is something I picked up on a walk the other day.  I'll give you the answer tomorrow.  There is one pretty obvious answer, but that isn't it.

Discrimination or discrimination?

 

When metal detecting, there is more than one way to discriminate.  You can let the detector do it for you by using a discrimination knob to completely eliminate a complete range of less desirable signals, or use a fancier form of discrimination, such as notch discrimination, or use sophisticated  graphic digital output. 

Another way to discriminate is to use all-metals or pin-point mode and let your brain do the processing.  If you learn to hear what your detector is telling you, you don't need to discriminate out signals altogether or read a graphic display.  You can learn to interpret approximate size, general shape, depth, and metallic composition by listening to a simple auditory signal.  That takes a little time and training, but can be just as or even more effective.   Of course, some detectors provide more information in the auditory signal than others, but you don't need anything very fancy to get a lot of information from the auditory signal.   What it takes is time and practice.

I will continue with this some other time.


Treasure Coast beach detecting conditions remain poor.  The surf on Wednesday will be only about three feet and then decrease more for a couple of days.  


Happyhunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/16/14 Report - Treasure Coast Beaches, Copper Sheathing, and Did de Leon Ever Land in St. Augustine

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

One Treasure Coast Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide

The Treasure Coast beaches haven't changed hardly at all for the past couple of weeks.

The weather is beautiful and there are a lot of snow birds on the beach.

The beach, though, still looks very much like a summer beach, as you might be able to tell from this photo.

It was mushy all the way to the water.

Another Treasure Coast beach was slightly better, but far from anything that would cause me to upgrade my beach detecting conditions rating.  The cut that I showed about a week ago was still in place, as was the sand bar in front of it.  Like I said, not much has changed.

There weren't many shells, but there were a few shells and small fossil pieces.

I mentioned a few days ago that people have been picking up shards and things like that.

Here is a piece of copper with nails found by J.K.   He wanted opinions.  What do you think?

I won't give you mine yet.  I don't want to influence you.

A few days ago I told you to go and watch how the water moves sand and things.  I made a video to illustrate some things about that but haven't yet managed to get it to load into the blog.  Hopefully I'll get that to work.  I was able to capture some good illustrations.

Even a very calm surf and small waves move things.  It is just on a smaller scale.

I'm trying to organize a good presentation on reading beaches. Until I get it done (there is a LOT to it)  I'll just throw a few more things out there from time to time.


They are saying that the jet stream has been moving farther south and that will bring colder and longer winters to the US.  That has happened this year.  We'll see what happens in the future.


Thanks to Pete R. who pointed out a mistake I made in my previous post concerning eyeglasses.  It should have read, " Previously they were found to date to as early as 1727 but have now been found to go back as far as 1714. "


Any help in dating items can be useful at some point.  It is always helpful to have an idea about how old dug items might be.


You can't always go by what our historic markers say.  That is one thing T. D. Allman points out in his book on Florida history.

Press releases by the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park claim that the park is where "Ponce de Leon landed in St. Augustine in 1513 searching for a Fountain of Youth."

Allman claims that the Fountain of Youth myth was created by Washington Irving, who was not beyond embellishing history, to put it mildly, and Allman explains that there is no evidence that de Leon ever landed in Florida north of Cape Canaveral.

I've been waiting to see if my video clip would load today.  I'm giving up on it for now.

Happy hunting
TreasureGuide@comcast.net