Shipwreck Spike Dug Today. As you can see this spike hasn't been cleaned yet. It was dug this morning. I like the bend. It's iron and about eight inches long. It was down about a foot and a half in hard packed shells in the low tide zone.
I went out to see the beach this morning with the intention of taking it easy to avoid aggravating my injuries. I didn't bother the injuries, but I got into some hard digging.
I'm going to start right off with the forecast and conditions report today. As you probably know, there is a lot of sand piled up on the beaches and in some places a lot of shells. Many of the shells are under a layer of sand. The chances of finding a shipwreck cob are very poor. However, there seems to be a good number of iron artifacts out there. If you want to target iron or spikes, the chances aren't bad.
I was surprised by how much was out there to be dug this morning. I went out for a quick leisurely stroll expecting to do a little more eyeballing and ended up digging two foot holes in hard packed shells. I found a number of kinds of items, including seas glass, an Indian pot shard, fossils, in addition to the shipwreck spikes.
If you are interested in the first three, check the shell piles. If you are interested in targeting iron shipwreck artifacts, I would focus on the front ten yards or so of the beach at low tide on beaches where there has been a lot of shells.
The sand bar is protecting the beach and in some places a dip is forming between the bar and the shore. Near low tide, the dip is nice and calm as the bar is protecting the dip and beach front from wave action.
If you are targeting iron artifacts, I would recommend taking a shovel instead of or in addition to a scoop.
Expect the iron artifact to be about five yards from the water at low tide and down a foot or two in hard packed shells. It isn't easy digging. I'm feel certain that if I stayed longer, I would have found another spike or two. And who knows, maybe a cob adhering to a piece of iron or something else interesting.
You still have easy access to the front beach, but the seas are predicted to increase Sunday and Monday. That will make the front beach a little more difficult to work, but it might also make some additional targets available.
The wind is still from the southeast but will be from the east when the seas begin to build for next week. It looks like a fun holiday weekend.
Someone asked me if I could name the beaches that I show. I occasionally do, but most often don't. There are some reasons for that. First, I want you to generalize from what I show. And I really don't want a hundred people running out to the same beach. That is the biggest reason I don't usually name the beaches I show.
If you were interested in the videos I showed yesterday and want to find some fossils, there are a few good beaches for fossils. One is Wabasso.
If you are interested in sharks teeth, one good place is the area just north of Seagrape trail. (You wont' find the sharks teeth there unless there are shell piles).
Another good fossil beach is the beach at Vero down to Rio Mar. Some really nice mammoth or mastodon teeth came from there after a storm.
And another is Walton Rocks.
Just as for other types of targets, the conditions have to be right, or you won't find much even if you are on the right beach.
This is what the Nieves site looked like from Green Turtle Beach this morning.
Nieves Site This Morning.It was a little strange. I didn't even see a single fishing boat out this morning. Everybody must be waiting for the weekend.
Many have thought that the importation of 300 tons of silver from the New World caused terrible inflation in Spain. That is disputed by a recent study using mass spectrometry on old silver Spanish coins. The study suggests that the New World silver was not used to make coins for nearly a hundred years.
I don't know about that but if you want to read the report, here is the link.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/conquistador-silver-may-not-have.html?ref=hp
I'm not sure if their sample of coins was a good representative sample. I'll have to read the study more closely later.
Odyssey Marine is appealing the ruling that they have to return the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes treasure to Spain.
Here is the link giving the details of that story.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/deep-sea-explorers-fight-with-spain-over-shipwreck-treasure-in-atlantas-federal-appeals-court/2011/05/24/AF16VJAH_story.html
I think that's it for today.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
