Guess What This Is.This is a really neat item found on the St. Johns wreck and pictured in the Fisher organization report that I mentioned yesterday for the St. Johns Wreck. I didn't keep it secret very long, but the item is a conquistador helmet.
I wonder how many of you would have tossed it away if you dug it up on a beach?
The report also has a drawing of how the helmet would have looked new. You can use the link I gave in yesterday's post if you want to see that.
I often talk about coin lines and coin holes. I don't know if I've explained that neither are found in the dry sand area. Coin lines and coin holes are the result of the sifting and sorting of items by water action. I think I've probably said that before.
You see coin lines mostly in the wet sand, although you will sometimes find coin holes in the wet sand, but you find coin holes in the water. Both areas receive enough water action and sand movement to sift and deposit coins in lines or holes. Like I said, coin lines are much more common in the wet sand and holes more common in the water.
If you live on the Treasure Coast and hunt mostly the shipwreck treasure beaches or hunt the dry sand areas, you probably wouldn't learn about coin lines and holes. On the shipwreck beaches, there usually isn't enough coins to define either a coin line or coin hole. If you only find one or two good targets, there simply aren't enough data points do make either a line or hole apparent.
If you live in South Florida, as I did for a number of years, most beaches have had enough traffic over time to create good coin lines and holes on a relatively frequent basis. There are way more coins on the beaches down there, not all of which are within detecting range at any given time, but they are available for the water action to create lines or holes.
I think it would have taken me much longer to learn about coin lines and holes if I only detected the Treasure Coast treasure beaches. I do occasionally find lines and holes on the Treasure Coast, it is just much less frequently, and I already know what to look for and how to find them.
By the way, things besides coins are often found in coin lines and holes. The better the line or hole, the more likely it is to find gold in with the coins. Some of the best concentrations of gold rings are in the middle of good coin holes in the water. Sometimes you need to clean out the coins so you can get to the yellow stuff. You'll find that sometimes you'll only notice the softer deeper sounds after you have cleaned out the louder surface targets, so after you do a good job of cleaning out a line or hole go back over it again a time or two listening for those soft signals.
If you haven't' been reading this blog very long you might want to do a search for older posts on coin lines and coin holes.
I got an email from someone yesterday about an area that I used to hunt. It was a park down south that has a wide shallow swimming beach. That place was a little unusual. I found almost as many gold rings there as coins. Well, maybe 1 ring to every four or so coins. That is pretty unusual in my experience. There weren't many coins at that beach, and there weren't usually any significant coin lines or holes. There just wasn't very much wave action due to how shallow the water was for hundreds of yards out. As a result, the beach didn't receive very much wave energy and not very much movement of sand. Anyhow, you could walk out there and find a nickle or something and wander around some more and hit a gold ring. The proportion of gold rings to coins was unusual. I don't know exactly why that was, but it was that way over a period of years.
The reason I mention that is when I talk about sampling a beach, you have to know the beach and consider what you know about the beach when you decide what to do next. If I went to that beach and didn't know it as well as I do, I might think it had been cleaned out after detecting for a while with so little to show for it. But knowing that beach, if I didn't hit a single coin for a while, I might still keep looking. On the other hand, there are beaches where there are usually scattered coins or maybe even junk items. If you know that when you sample the beach, you can tell what has changed. So what I am saying is that it helps to have a good knowledge of a particular beach to serve a baseline when you sample the beach. That takes some time.
While putting in your time learning a beach, you'll get to know the good spots, and you'll get to know the habits of other people that hunt that beach. You can use all of that to good advantage.
Some coin lines or holes tend to replenish or form repeatedly at the same place. Some tend to appear under certain conditions and some at different times of the year.
I've talked before about keeping good records of your hunts and finds. That can really help.
A Recent Find.Here is an item I found the other day. It looks like it could possibly be an encrusted blade. It is about seven inches long and one inch wide. Let me know what you think.
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
As you probably know present conditions aren't very good and haven't changed much for quite some time.
Right now the wind is from the southeast and it is a little rough. Tomorrow might be a nice time to check around the beach front at low tide. The sea is expected to be calmer tomorrow.
A front will be coming through and the prediction is for northeast winds and seas of about 5.5 feet. That isn't usually enough, but if it hits just right, it might actually create some cuts.
As I said yesterday, you might want to check the low tide later tomorrow and then check the beaches after the Wednesday again.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
