Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Wabasso Beach This Morning Looking Towards Disney.There was a lot of hard rain and lightening on parts of the Treasure Coast this morning. I don't mind the rain, but prefer to avoid the lightening.
I took a look at a variety of beaches to try to get a good idea of what was going on around the Treasure Coast. Early, travel was hazardous. There were places with a lot of standing water in the road, and there were a few fender benders.
I started detecting one spot but decided to move on when the lightening started getting hot and heavy.
You can hear lightening in your ear phones a good distance off. And it can sound like false signals at times. There is nothing on the beach worth getting struck for.
Anyhow, what I found was a lot of variation. Some beaches showed no erosion, some had some scalloping, and some were cut, but mostly the erosion was into new beach replenishment sand.
The photo above shows some erosion, but mostly into beach renourishment sand. You can see the newly planted sea oats above the big cut towards the back of the beach. Most of the erosion there is not new.
It might be worth checking the low tide zone there, and the bend just south of Disney. The beach front is relatively low, and there were a lot of people playing in the surf at Disney.
Amber Sands Beach Access Looking South This Morning.As you can see, there were no cuts at Amber Sands. Looking north towards the museum I didn't see any evidence of erosion up that way either.
Of the beaches that I saw in that area, Seagrape Trail and Turtle Trail looked the most promising to me, even though there was still a lot of beach renourishment sand protecting the back dunes and in front of the beach.
There might be some beaches up there that look better than these, but I didn't see them.
I also looked at Rio Mar. It didn't look very good at all.
I didn't take any long walks this morning, so my observations are all from close to the beach accesses.
Rio Mar This Morning.Like I said, there is a lot of variation from one beach to another, so if you look around enough you might find a good spot or two.
The Green Turtle beach was developing nicely yesterday and today, but the cuts there are into newly accumulated sand too.
The surf predictions are holding nicely. We can still expect eight foot seas around the Fort Pierce area Saturday and Sunday and twelve foot seas around Sebastian.
As I mentioned a day or two ago, I don't like the predicted wind directions. They are predicting wind and waves which are too easterly for my liking. I'd like to see the wind coming from a more northerly direction.
Nonetheless, from what I've seen so far, I do expect that a few cobs will be found.
I'm sticking with my two rating for now even though there is a spot or two that would rate higher if I was to rate individual beaches. My rating is an average over the Treasure Coast.
From what I'm hearing, you can also expect more rain through the weekend, so remember your rain gear.
On another topic:
As I said yesterday, I learned that Rucks' Pit is still open. I got emails from a Daniel B. and Fred D. about that.
Fred spoke to Eddie Rucks, who owns Rucks'Pit. It seems that all of the material from the original site, which is thousands of tons, was moved to the property across the road from the original mine. The property that had the original mine has been sold, but the new site of over 100 acres will be mined in the future. Until then the the thousands of tons of moved crystal bearing material will be accessible for collectors to mine for a fee.
Fred said you can call Eddie Rucks at the Fort Drum Crystal Mine for more information.
To follow up on the fossil clams, Daniel B. sent in the following information about how the crystals are formed.
He said,
I was surprised to learn that the calcite crystals formed inside the clams found at Rucks when some sudden natural disaster either buried the clams alive or poisoned them with fresh water. Then the organic material trapped in the cavity formed beautiful calcite crystals. Interesting to think what could have caused this. Here is the link
http://www.apalachee-minerals.com/calcite_pages/Calcite.htm
Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net
