Treasure Coast Beach This Morning Near Low Tide.I think you can see a small dip in front of a broad sand bar here. This beach is a little steeper than the low flat beach I talked about yesterday and which had the iron objects out front.
You might know about the important incised mammoth bone that was found near Vero. A research team of archaeologists, paleontologists, forensic anthropologists, materials science engineers, and artists have studied that important 13,000-year-old bone and artifact, which may be the only one of its kind found in the Western Hemisphere. It appears that the carving is genuine.
Here is the link to the story.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=137342353
I attended a conference about this important archaeological find and wrote about this bone in this blog in the past, for example in my Oct. 21, 2010 post.
The most recent blog survey has ended and the results are in.
One of the biggest findings is that nearly 80% of those who responded, have never found a cob on the Treasure Coast beaches. To put it another way, only 1 in 5 have.
It's not easy. It takes time. I traveled to the Treasure Coast a number of times before I found my first. It made me wonder if I would ever find one.
It always seems like the first one is the hardest. Unless you happen to be one of the lucky ones, like the lady that found a gold escudo on her very first outing with a detector. It usually takes a while. You have to be there when the conditions are right, and it is hard to know when they are right unless you are there to see them.
When I began there wasn't any blog that told about Treasure Coast beach conditions. It was pot luck. I would make the trip and then only find out what the beaches were like when I got there.
After you find the first, it seems like you gain some confidence, knowing that they are there and that you can find them if you keep at it.
If you don't live on the Treasure Coast, it is difficult. There are times when you can cover every square inch of Treasure Coast beach and you won't find a single.
That is the reason I created the Treasure Coast Treasure Beach Detecting Conditions Scale. I wish I had that when I started looking for cobs. It would have saved me a lot of wasted trips.
I always tell people from distant locations to not make the trip until there is a storm or something. Otherwise it is a real long shot. There is always the possibility, but sometimes the probabilities are very very low.
The second main finding of the survey is that conditions have not been good for the past couple of years and that the majority of finds go back two years or more.
One problem with the way I constructed the survey is that I left out the category of 5 years or more. I bet there would have been a lot in that period because many cobs were found after the hurricanes of 2004.
There have been some cobs found in the last six months. Not many but some.
As I often say, I start my beach conditions rating scale with a 1 instead of a 0 because there is always some chance, even if it is very small.
I think I only raised my rating scale above a 1 a very few times this year. I'll have to look that up.
But overall, the last two years have not been very good for hunting cobs. There has been very little erosion, and no really good northeasters to scour the beaches. The best conditions I can remember occurred over two years ago now. I'll should go back and plot the times that I increased my beach conditions rating in the past few years. I can recall once when I gave a four rating. I think that was about two and a half year ago.
In summary, conditions haven't been very good very often during the last two years, yet a few cobs have been found during that time. Hopefully we'll get a nice storm or two (I don't want and it doesn't take a hurricane.) that will move a good bit of sand and even hit the back dunes.
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
No change in beach conditions. the wind is from the south. You can see what the ocean is like from the photo above. The water is still pretty smooth. And the tropics look calm.
In a few days the seas will increase, but not by a great deal - maybe two or three feet. That won't be enough to change beach conditions a lot.
Between all of the beach renourishment sand along the coast and the smooth seas, it really isn't very promising out there. The southeast summer breezes tend to build the beaches.
Any rough water could freshen up some of the spots where iron is currently being found. But a lot of guys aren't the least interested in that.
The water is still smooth if you want to do some water hunting.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
