9/26/17 Report - What the High Water Did To Some Beaches. Useful Web Site For Predicting Beach Conditions. Various Types of Finds Along the Treasure Coast.

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

Frederick Douglas Beach This Morning.

Yesterday I showed the water getting high on Frederick Douglas beach.  Today I went out to see what happened.  The answer unfortunately, is very little.

I'm about to call Irma, Jose and Maria all a bust when it comes to improving metal detecting conditions.  Who would guess that three hurricanes would not produce much better beaches?  Not one of them did a lot for us.

There are reasons.  And I'm always learning.  I learned something just the other day.  Actually I already knew it to some extent, but didn't give pay take it into account enough.  There is little use to pay attention to wind direction unless it is blowing fairly hard.  Otherwise it is not going to affect the direction of the swells.

The past few days I looked at the wind direction on MagicSeaWeed, but I didn't pay enough attention to the wind speed.  I should have paid more attention to what web sites like Ventusky.com was telling me when I plotted the waves.

Below is an example.

Wave Direction.for Yesterday.

Source: Ventusky.com

What I saw at the beach yesterday and today matched what Ventusky.com said a couple of days ago (See my 9/23/17 post.). The waves, as predicted were hitting the beach straight on despite the north winds. The wind wasn't very strong, so didn't seem to have much effect.

We always talk about northeasters, but direction isn't the only factor.  The wind has to be fairly strong, otherwise they won't have a significant effect on the swells.

I think I could do this a hundred years and I would still continue to learn.

Below is another picture of a beach that I looked at this morning.

Treasure Coast Beach Tuesday Morning.

Notice the waves coming directly at the beach and all the seaweed.  The beach was building.  You could see new layers of sand on the beach.  That isn't what we were hoping for.  I'll pay more attention to the swells in the future and less to wind direction.  

I've said before that it doesn't take a hurricane and recently went over what happened during the Thanksgiving Storm of 1984.  Jon Morgan, who does the great Lets Talk Metal Detecting and Treasure Hunting podcasts, said that post was very helpful to him.  You might want to take a look at that post again.  Hurricanes don't always create good detecting conditions.  Neither does high water.

I made a few interesting finds today - at least I thought they were interesting.

I found one very big piece of wood.  It was about seven feet long.  My photo showing the entire length somehow got lost, but here are a couple photos of a section of the wood.

Large Piece of Wood Found On Beach This Morning.

 Notice the worm holes and the apparently worked surface.

Another Shot of the Same Piece of Wood.

Ballast Stone?

A couple of days ago I mentioned finding some pieces of fossilized bone.  Here is the smallest - a small vertebra.

Small Fossilized Vertebrae Shown On U. S. Nickel.

I picked up more fossils today.  They are shown below.

Fossils Found On Beach Today.

The most interesting one to me was the piece of antler.  I've found those before and always like them.

Here is a closer view of that one.

Fossilized Piece of Antler.

And here is an ever closer view that shows the nice color and texture.

Closeup of Fossil Antler.

I walked a long distance today because I wanted to check out a particular location that I have not seen for quite a while.  It wasn't much good for detecting, but I did pick up the fossils on the way.

As I often say, when conditions aren't good for finding one type of thing they might be good for finding other things.

Today I didn't do any detecting, but kept myself entertained with wood, stone, fossils and shells while I scouted a few beaches.

I'll be showing you some more things I learned tomorrow or some other time real soon.  I think that is all for today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/12/16 Report - More High Water and High Surf Coming This Week.

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

John Brooks Beach Yesterday Morning

Yesterday we had a nice stiff wind from the east/northeast on the Treasure Coast.  The water got pretty high on the beach, as you can see in the photo above.

Yesterday Morning Near Low Tide

If you look closely at the picture above you can see where the roots of the clumps of grass were exposed.  That was about the only place you could see cuts on beaches like this.

Yesterday Morning Near Low Tide

You can see a similar thing in this photo.  

There was a good bit of erosion at the big bend.  It is not cut though.  Despite this erosion, the beach is not eroded back nearly as far as it was some years ago.  The erosion then was back to the pine trees, which were back about where the condos are now.

Matthew affected the beach nothing like Jeanne and Francis.  It was a bit more like Sandy, which caused high water but little in the way of cuts.

The next few days we're going to have more high surf.

Source: MagicSeaweed,

As you can see from the above chart, we're going to have several days of high surf.  That will be something to watch.  At any time it might create a productive spot or two.

We can have a northeast waves that hit our beaches directly at a 90 degree angle because the Treasure Coast runs at an angle, not directly north to south in a straight line.  You'll often notice erosion around bends in the beach where the angle changes.  

Keep watching.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/6/14 Report - Water Got High On The Beach But LIttle To No Erosion. Fossils and Sea Glass On Beach Today. Beach Crime. Valuable Old Books.

Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.



First Beach I Looked At This Morning
Notice how the water had been up over the berm.

I got out to look at the beach this morning.  The higher surf yesterday didn't do much. I did see some small cuts, but only at a location where sand had been dumped.  Renourishment sand will usually disappear quickly.  It is out of place and the ocean will quickly reclaim it. 




I call cuts in renourishment sand superficial.  They seldom produce anything good.  Things that were brought in with the sand can wash out when the sand washes away.  Most often it is filled with trash.

Second Beach I Visited This Morning.
It was just as sandy as the first.

This morning I could tell that the water had been up pretty high on both of the beaches.  In the first photo, you can see where the water washed up over the berm.

At the second beach that I looked at, the water had been nearly back to the dunes. 

At the second beach, there were a good number of shells near the water.  There was a dip right in front of the beach.  There was also iron, sea glass, and pieces of fossils in with the shells.

I found some nice large pieces of sea glass, but mostly broken pieces of fossil.

There were some pieces of copper and unidentifiable old pieces of iron of various sizes and shapes on the front beach.  A few pieces of titanium too. 

I saw four police cars at the beach.  It seems there was a lot of activity.  One cop told me that a window was broken and a purse stolen from the front seat of a parked car at one beach access, and a charging iPhone was stolen from another.

Bunch of Shells and Dip In Front of Beach.

Don't leave valuables in your car.  Be careful where you park and be aware of who is around.










I like to find non-metallic items too.  Here are a couple of examples of the types of things that were  found in with the shell today.

Couple Fossilized Turtle Scutes.

Here are a couple fossil turtle scutes.  I think both are nucal (from the center line).  And both are from the edge of the shell, either front or back.

And below is a piece of sea glass.  It is unusually shaped and thick.  Doesn't look like it came from a bottle, but I don't have any idea what it did come from.  The odd shape doesn't show from the photo.

Those are just a few examples.  When there are fossils there very well could be a shark tooth or something else interesting.

And if there is sea glass, there could also be an older piece of pottery or porcelain.



Sotheby's had an auction of old exploration and discovery books.  Old books like that can be good resources for research, but they can also be worth big bucks.  Some of these contain early maps.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2014/exploration-discovery-library-franklin-brooke-hitching-l14412.html?cmp=email_l14412_0914_3_AURexample1_event_button1

Thick Piece of Sea Glass Found in Shells Today.

Check shell piles.  You never know when you might see a piece of black glass, Kang Hsi porcelain or whatever.  They do appear from time to time.


It looks like the Treasure Coast will have a two to three foot surf for a while now.

The tides are not as flat as they have been, but we still are not having negative low tides.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide @Comcast.net