5/2/15 Report - Finally The Surf Is Increasing. Dime Hole On One Beach. Fort Pierce Renourishment Project.

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

One Treasure Coast Beach Showing Poor Conditions Yesterday Near Low Tide.

Notice the lazy surf.  Yesterday there was only enough force to continue moving sand onto the beach.

Also notice the whitish water next to the beach.

I didn't bother to take my detector out at this beach.

A Similar But Different Beach Yesterday Near Low Tide.

This beach was different from the one shown above.  This one has a flat low tide area and a steeper front beach behind that.

Sand was lost here a few weeks ago when the high tide got higher up near the dunes.  The slope of the beach is therefore slightly concave as compared to the one above.

Above the bend shown near the top of the picture I found what I would call a very lose coin hole.  Coins were scattered from the old high tide line down to near the flat front beach.

The strange thing to me was that a very high percentage of the coins were dimes.  The first eight coins I hit were dimes.  That is a bit unusual.

All of those dimes had a thick dark green patina.  Obviously not just a spill.  They were spread out, not clustered.

Almost all targets were deep again.  I'm thinking someone probably detected this area not long ago and got all but the deeper smaller items such as the dimes.  Only one or two of them were not that deep.

Dredge Out By Capron Shoals.

Here is the dredge ship collecting sand for the Fort Pierce Jetty Park project.  That thing has been dragging on for months.


Here is what the county says.

The Corps awarded a $6.24 million contract to Manson Construction Co. of Seattle in September 2014 to construct this project, which is scheduled to be completed no later than the end of May...   Crews will dredge beach quality sand from an offshore borrow area and transport it via hopper dredge to the inlet where it will be pumped onto the beach via pipeline.  A team will use heavy equipment on the beach to move the sand.  Dredging operations will run 24 hours daily, weather permitting.

And here is the link for the entire article.

http://www.stlucieco.gov/media/13848.htm


They say they are bringing quality sand.  I don't think it could be much worse than the sand they pumped in a few months ago.  That sand was fine, eroded in a hurry, and was FULL of junk.  It looked like they got it from trash mountain.

A couple of artifacts did get dumped on the beach with the tons of trash.

This sand is coming from about four miles southeast of the jetty.

You might find the Army Corps web site interesting too.  It tells what they are doing around the state.

 http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/

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The big news for me today is that the wind has changed and the surf on the Treasure Coast is picking up.   The wind is coming from the north this Saturday morning.  It is supposed to be north/northeast for a couple of days.

The surf will increase today and continue to increase up to five or six feet tomorrow.

That is a welcome change.  The current prediction is for the surf to stay up around the five foot area or several days.  I'm glad about that.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/13/15 Report - 1711 LIma 8 Escudo From 1715 Fleet. Lots of Sand on Treasure Coast.

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

1711 Lima 8 Escudos In The Current Sedwick Coins Auction.

This 8 escudo is from the 1715 Fleet, and is encapsulated NGC MS 64, which is the highest grade certified for any Lima eight.   It is lot 28 in the auction.

You can see why it grades so well.  Very bold strike.  Look at the detail in the castle, for example.
A very bold strike and good luster.

You can see the three digits of the year 1711.  Also the mint mark in the upper left, assayer initial upper right, and denomination upper middle.

It comes with a Fisher photo-certificate.

It has an auction estimate of 20 to 40 thousand dollars, and already has a bid of $23,000.  I expect it to go much higher.

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One Treasure Coast Beach This Morning Near Low Tide.
 

There were a couple of spots where the front beach was a little steeper where there were some modest coin clusters.  This beach was steeper than I expected.

The dry sand here showed evidence of heavy weekend use.  There was a bunch of junk strewn around and the sand looked like a football game had been played there.

I visited another beach this morning, one that is one of my favorites and found it to be worse than this beach.  It had accumulated about two feet of sand since the last time I was there.  As a result I was digging a lot of DEEP holes in very fine compact sand that was not easy to dig.  Thank goodness one of those deep holes paid off.  I must be getting lazy in my old age.

The Treasure Coast beaches are as clean as I've ever seen (target wise). People have evidently been removing the pull tabs, bottle caps, etc.  I wonder if I had anything to do with that?

When the junk targets are removed from beaches there is less and less benefit in using discrimination.

I mentioned just the other day how I had cleaned up one beach for myself and now even with zero discrimination, there is little junk to be detected.

Surf At One Treasure Coast Beach Near Low Tide This Morning.

One thing about the Excalibur is that it isn't too hot to iron.  That isn't what I was using today.  I was using a PI detector and there still was very little iron.

I've been really learning to make the optimal use of a detector that is fairly new to me.  I've spent a lot of time experimenting with it and the various settings and techniques.

I want to be able to use it to best advantage when a storm finally comes along that uncovers some older items on the beach.

I much prefer hunting a beach with features, including dips, cuts, holes, etc.  It is more interesting to me to hunt for accumulations even when it is easier to go for the recent drops.

Some spots accumulate coins and things consistently over a period of years or even decades.  Others seem to come and go more quickly.

I'll talk about that more some other time and maybe a few detectors as they shape up as beach machines.

I'll have to make some find photos later today.

Nothing more than a three-foot surf in the predictions for the Treasure Coast for the next week or so. We have to get a storm sometime.

That's all for now.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net