6/13/20 Report - Treasure Coast Beaches Building. A Morning On The Beach. One More TG Mistake.

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

John Brooks Beach This Morning.

I went out to take a look at a few beaches this morning.  My first stop was at John Brooks.  As you can see above there was a lot of seaweed.  There was a flat front beach that was building.  You can also see a small cut in the photo.

John Brooks Beach This Morning.

Frederick Douglass Beach This Morning.

Frederick Douglass, as usual, was very much like John Brooks.  Notice the waves breaking right on edge of the front beach. 

The difference at Walton Rocks is the bar about 75 yards out and the small dip in the water in front of the beach.  The waves are breaking on the bar.

Unlike John Brooks and Frederick Douglass, you don't have the flat front beach at Walton Rocks.

Walton Rocks This Morning.

I did about twenty minutes of detecting in the dry sand this morning and found a handful of coins and a silver shepherd's hook earring and small turtle.  I don't know what that is mounted in the center of the earring.   No good finds, but I enjoyed spending a little time before it got real hot.

Morning Finds.

I was actually surprised by the number of easy finds this morning, even if they aren't much good.

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Captain Jonah says he is off to a slow start but will be sending photos when good finds are made.

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I've been listing some mistakes I've made.  Here is another.

Yesterday I posted some fossils.  I was looking for a dire wolf tooth that I found near the water's edge one day all by itself.  I precisely remember finding it and where, and I remember the research I did on it, but I couldn't find it when I wanted to.   I have one box of fossils and some of them are stored in bags with their labels, but I have fossils in other places too.  The mistake is pretty obvious: I wasn't organized enough in how I stored things.  Some were just thrown in a box together.  Some were in different places.  Right now I don't know where the dire wolf tooth is and there are probably a number of others that I couldn't find right away if I wanted to.  That doesn't apply to just fossils.

You might think you'll remember where things are and there is no reason to take the time, but if you are like me, the years will pass and you won't be able to locate finds when you want to.  That is an easy enough problem to solve, but you have to decide it is worth taking the time.  It might not seem like it now, but it will later.

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For an insightful look at COVID-19, try the book that Amazon.com tried to censure - Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1: Introduction and Death Counts and Estimates by Alex Berenson. Amazon.com made tons of money as the primary online shopping retailer during the lockdowns.

Here is the link.

https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Berenson/e/B001JRVEO4%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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Don't expect beach conditions to change much for at least a few days.  There is no tropical activity on the NHC map right now.

The surf is running around two or three feet, and the surf is small.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/2/20 Report - Beach Conditions From Frederick Douglass to Turtle Trail. Tropical Storm Cristobal.

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

Fort Pierce South Jetty Beach.

I took a look at a few beaches Monday.  You can see a couple of them here.

Frederick Douglass Beach Monday.

We have summer beaches now, and it is hot so people are getting in the water more.

Frederick Douglass Beach Near Low Tide Monday.

John Brooks beach looked very much like Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass Beach Monday.

I managed to find a small gold lion pendant.

Gold Lion Pendant.

Tuesday Morning I visited Turtle Trail.  Here is what it looked like.

Turtle Trail Tuesday Morning.

Tuesday the weather was the kind I like - cloudy and rainy.  No crowds - just nature.

There were a few very small cuts and dips.

Turtle Trail Tuesday Morning.

Down around the low tide swash area there was about a foot of fine sand over a layer of coarse shells.  The shell layer contained miscellaneous light trash and a few pennies and things like that.  There were deeper objects, but they were difficult to dig out.

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About a month ago I did a couple posts on Rolex watches.  There are now a lot of new stolen ones out there.

Last night looter's took $2.4 million worth of Rolex watches from a looted Soho store.

Here is the link.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/01/looters-swipe-2-4m-worth-of-watches-from-soho-rolex-store/

By the way, if you are wondering why the police aren't doing much to stop the rioters, looters and Antifa trouble makers, it is because a lot of them are from well connected political families that support Antifa.  For example, the son of former VP candidate, Tim Kaine, is a member of Antifa, and Mayor de Blasio's daughter was recently arrested during the riots.

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We have a new tropical storm in the Gulf.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

It looks like it will head towards Louisiana.  I doubt that it will affect us much.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

5/20/20 Report - Beaches. Mystery Items Reappear. Borderline Conditions Last Week. Surf Increasing.

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

Fort Pierce South Jetty Park Tuesday.

I was in the area and stopped to see how the renourishment project at the Fort Pierce South Jetty beach was doing.  It looks like they finished but didn't dump as much sand as I was expecting to see.  They didn't go as far east or south as I thought they would.  The sand is a fine white sand - nicer looking than some of the previous projects.

Fort Pierce South Jetty Beach Tuesday.

Also stopped at John Brooks.  If I had my pole, I would have done some fishing.  There were some nice schools close in and a nice big fish chasing them.  I didn't take my detector out.

John Brooks Beach Tuesday.

Sand had piled up on the front beach.

John Brooks Beach Tuesday.

I also took a quick look at Frederick Douglass.  Not very exciting, and a thunder storm was coming.

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Frederick Douglass Beach Tuesday.

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A couple days ago I posted a photo of a mystery find by DJ.  I got some good information on that object from John C., who showed five examples of the same thing.

Here is what John said.

Yeah, we  used to find those pretty frequently back in the 90s.  I was told back then that they were from a shipwreck, but not associated with 1715, but it's been a while, I haven't found one since I would say the hurricane season of 04.  It's interesting seeing them show up again.

Thanks.   James 1v12 

Items That Look Like the Mystery Item Found by DJ.

Finds and photo by John C.

Thanks John.

Also from the Not Just Coincidence department, below is a find from Steve L. It is the same kind of copper tack I found a few days ago.

Steve said, I also detected turtle trail around low tide Sunday. I saw 2 other guys detecting south ahead of me but none of us were digging much.  I managed to get only one target but I am happy with it. I took a picture next to a penny for size reference. I think it is like the one you found a few days ago I enjoy your blog. Steve L 

If anyone can tell me more about these items, please do.  I'd like to hear from others who have found them and whatever ideas you have about them.  Thanks.

Copper Tack Find by Steve L.

Photo by Steve L.

I always say when you find one of an item, there is a very good chance that there is more nearby.

Last Thursday I checked out a beach and there was some erosion, but I didn't know if it was enough.  I found this piece of lead, which as I said in a previous post, I took as what I call a signal find.

That piece, dense and nearly the size of a cob, told me that there was a possibility of other older dense metals nearby, so I checked the next day and found a few more small and seemingly old items, including another folded piece of lead.  My finds, along with John and Steve's finds, suggests to me that beach conditions were getting very close to producing some cobs, and perhaps would have produced one or two small ones if I had been in just the right place.  While beach conditions were not great yet, they were improving.  Unfortunately, the next day, conditions on the same beach seemed to deteriorate.  With the calm conditions we've had lately, I would guess that there are still some things that are close and could easily become accessible again with a little more movement of sand.

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Archaeologists are racing against the clock to save the remains of a buried Viking ship from a ruthless foe:  fungus.

If the project is successful, the 65-foot-long (20 meters) oak vessel — called the Gjellestad ship — will become the first Viking ship to be excavated in Norway in 115 years, said Sveinung Rotevatn, the Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment...

Here is the link for more about that.

https://elexonic.com/2020/05/18/fungus-is-destroying-a-buried-viking-ship-heres-how-norway-plans-to-save-it/

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Looks like after today the small surf will disappear from the Treasure Coast.  Then we'll get up to six feet.

Surf Predictions.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

5/14/20 Report - Tropical Storm Forming. Beach Conditions Around the Treasure Coast.

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

Turtle Trail Beach Thursday Morning.

It looks like we could get our first tropical storm of the year before long.  More on that later.

I took a look at a few beaches.  At Turtle Trail this morning, there was a little erosion, as you can see above.  Just the top of the bags was showing.

There was a flat area in front of the beach that had mostly aluminum bits but also a few pieces of lead.  The biggest piece of lead I got was a small strip, maybe two inches square if it wasn't folded.

Turtle Trail Thursday Morning.

The flat wet area is where I was finding most of the targets.

I dug a few small holes just to see how deep the orange sand was and found that it was more than a foot where I checked, but I didn't get all the way down to it.

As I was leaving, I saw Warren doing a few test holes.  He mentioned that the orange sand was down about 18 inches at one location.  That is about what I would expect when just the top of the bags are showing.

The parking lot at Seagrape Trail was still closed.

Ambersands Beach Thursday Morning.

Here is what Ambersands looked like.  I didn't check it with the detector at all.

Over the past couple of weeks, if anything, it has deteriorated a little.

Ambersands Beach Thursday Morning.

Wednesday evening I took a look at John Brooks.  It was much like Turtle Trail, with a small cut pretty far back on the beach and a lot of sand out front.

The cut at Turtle Trail was fresher, and the bar in front of Brooks was wider.

John Brooks Wednesday Evening.

John Brooks Wednesday Evening.

Frederick Douglass Beach Wednesday

Photo by SuperRick.

Rick lost his controller for his XPDeus, so if anyone finds it, let me put you in touch with Rick.  Here is what he said.

While there I lost my controller for my XPDeus that came off my chest high holder that was Velcroed on and I was using the controller for my pin pointer!

At the time I was using my Equinox 800 to hunt with down in the wet so if you hear of anyone finding a controller I lost it!

Frederick Douglass Beach Wednesday

Photo by SuperRick.

Rick found on cheap ring on the day.

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As I said, a tropical storm is forming down south.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

According to the NHC,  Environmental conditions are expected to become conducive for 
development, and this system is likely to become a tropical or
subtropical depression or storm this weekend when it is located near
or north of the northwestern Bahamas. The system is forecast to
move generally northeastward over the western Atlantic early next
week. Regardless of development, the disturbance is expected to
bring locally heavy rainfall and gusty winds to portions of
southeastern Florida and the central and northwestern Bahamas over
the next couple of days...

The beaches are not too far off now. If we can get some good direction to the wind and swells, we could get some nice finds.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

4/29/20 Report - Beaches Open and Detectorists Out. How To Metal Detect Watches.

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

John Brooks Beach 4/28 Shortly After Low Tide.

Here are the first beach photos that I took for four or five weeks.  In the distance you can see one detectorist, who evidently arrived not long after the beach opened.

Not much to see beside sand, although there was also a person to the south collecting shells.  No problem with social distancing here.  There was about a hundred yards between people.

John Brooks Beach 4/29.

The surf was just a little choppy.  You can see the shell collector in this photo.

Frederick Douglass Beach 4/28

You can see how sandy it was from the deep footprints.

Another Look at Frederick Douglass Beach.

A few people had already been there. 

b

Blind Creek Beach 4/28.

A little farther to the south, Blind Creek looked pretty much the same.

I'm afraid we are now into summer beach conditions and will be waiting for the occasional storm to move some of the summer sand.

There are also places where beach renourishment is in full swing, such as at Fort Pierce South Jetty Park.  It seems to me that they do that beach at least every year, but some official claimed it wasn't that often.

I had other things I had to do so, those are the only beaches I saw.  I don't know how the Indian River County beaches looked.

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Dj got out to do some detecting.  Here is what he said.   Can’t decide what this is made of. It has a consistent thickness of 1/16” of an inch. But it was good to get out on the first day of beach opening. As expected not much erosion; just some old cuts with large shells and less sand on the front than a month ago.

DJ's Find of the Day.

Photo by DJ

I'm sure everybody is happy to be able to get out on the beaches again even though we don't have the best beach detecting conditions. --- As you probably know, I don't use discrimination much.  One reason is that some of the better targets are very difficult to identify from a metal detector response.  That is especially true of items made of various materials and items that can be positioned in a variety of ways.  Watches are an example.

Sample Watches.

Guess, Armitron, Orient, Seiko, and Seiko.

I've probably found a hundred watches, including some very expensive ones, but for this experiment I just pulled out a few.

Watches will give different metal detector readings depending upon several different factors.  One, of course, is what they are made of. That sounds simple enough, but remember they are made of a variety of materials - the workings, watch case, and band can all be different metals. 

Another factor is how the watch is laying. They can be either face up, as shown in the photo, or often on edge. And since they are odd shaped, it depends upon which direction your coil goes over the watch. When face up, you can get one reading when sweeping more over the face, and another when you sweep more over the band. When these watches were face up, most of them gave a conductivity number on the Equinox of either 16-17 or 30-33. Some of the watches gave more of the lower range number, while other gave more in the upper range. The better watches tend to give more readings in the 30-33 range. 

If you stand them on edge, you'll often get a much weaker signal. In fact the first watch shown above, the Guess, if standing on edge and the coil moving in one direction (parallel to the edge of the face) indicated iron.  If you were discriminating iron, you would have heard almost nothing at all. 

The main point is that with a complex target like a watch, the signal will vary depending upon several different factors. If you know what causes the variations you can still get a good idea that you might be detecting a watch before you dig it up. Don't forget to vary the position and angle of your sweep to observe the differences.

Generally speaking, better watches will tend to have more of the higher conductivity numbers.

My most recent Rolex was found in dry sand, as were some of the other good watches, but another good place to check for watches is in shallow shell-filled dips in the water.  They will generally ride pretty high in the sand.

One way you can get to know your metal detector better is by practicing with a variety of known targets.

If it doesn't sound like a coin or ring that doesn't necessarily mean it is no good.

Happy hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net

2/21/20 Report - A Look At Some Treasure Coast Beaches This Afternoon.

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

North of McLarty Museum Friday Early Afternoon.

I looked at a good sample of Treasure Coast beaches this afternoon to see if anything was developing yet.

You probably noticed the change in weather as the front came through.  It was pretty windy and colder.

Above you see what I saw north of McLarty, which is as far north as I went this afternoon.  No cuts or obvious erosion there yet.

Ambersands Beach Early Friday Afternoon.

The wind was blowing parallel to the beach while the waves were hitting straight on from the east.

The tide was low this morning when the surf started to increase, so the water didn't get very high on the beach.

I liked how the sand was blowing and at one point thought about trying to get a nice artistic picture of that, but didn't get around to it.

One fellow complained of the sand stinging.

Wabasso Beach Early Afternoon Friday.

Nothing much going on at Wabasso yet either.

Wabasso Beach Early Afternoon Friday.

Turtle Trail Early Afternoon Friday.

There were no cuts at Turtle Trail yet either.   There was hardly any cloth from the erosion control bags showing.

Turtle Trail Early Afternoon Friday.

When I first went by Seagrape Trail the access was closed.  Later it was open, but it didn't look much different from Turtle Trail.

They had done some repairs to the stairs, evidently why the access was closed earlier.

John Brooks Beach Around 3 PM Friday.

Upon walking onto John Brooks beach I noticed that the waves were hitting at a better angle.  I then saw some cuts developing just south of the access.

Cuts At John Brooks Beach Around 3 PM Friday.

I also looked at Frederick Douglass beach.  It didn't look much different than the uncut areas of John Brooks.

The surf is supposed to be higher tomorrow.

Source: MagicSeaWeed,com

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/15/20 Report - Beaches Around The Treasure Coast Today. Fossil Find. Shell Artifact Possibility. More Surf Predicted.

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

John Brooks Around Noon Saturday.

The surf got a little rougher today, as was predicted, however it didn't improve beach conditions much - at least not the ones I saw.  

Above and below you can see John Brooks as it looked around noon Saturday.

John Brooks Around Noon Saturday.

I moved on to take a look at Frederick Douglass beach.  It wasn't much different.

Frederick Douglass Beach Around Noon Saturday.

Frederick Douglass Beach Around Noon Saturday.

Later in the day I was in the Vero area and had time to stop at Turtle Trail.

Turtle Trail Saturday As the Hide Tide Was Receding.

Turtle Trail Saturday Well After High Tide.

DJ visited Frederick Douglass and Middle Cove today and made his first find of a fossil horse tooth.

Fossil Horse Tooth Found by DJ.

Photos by DJ.

Congratulations DJ.   Its always great to get a first.

Keep your eyes open for fossils.  Check areas with shells.

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I didn't get any opinions about DB's beautiful shell artifact find, however found an illustration of a hafted gorges fish hook that could be relevant.

Here it is.

A gorges fishhook is meant to be swallowed and catch deeper in the fish rather than hooking his lip.   The size of the hook would be dependent upon the size of the targeted fish.

A lot of sinkers and weights are one sided and meant to hang down, however DB's item was doubled ended.  That doesn't mean that it couldn't be a net weight or simply ornamental, however it also would allow hafting, as shown in the above illustration.  You can see where a sharp pointed object is attached to the bottom of the double ended carved shell.

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Fort Pierce was alive Saturday.   Pirate Fest was in full operation and well attended.  It will continue Sunday.

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Sunday the surf will decrease slowly from the 5 - 7 feet we had today.

Surf Forecast for Fort Pierce Area.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

I'm not expecting much new to happen tomorrow, but next Friday looks interesting.  Hope it doesn't fizzle out.

Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net