Written by the Treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Renourished Beach at Jupiter Inlet |
The beach by Jupiter Inlet now has tons of new sand on it as you can see in the picture here.
Notice particularly the area just east of the wreck pile where the sand sticks out into the water a little more.
I'm told the renourishment sand came from the inlet. If that is so, it might have a few interesting things in it. As you might know, that beach has been producing cobs and old US coins as well as jewelry for a long time.
People were finding cobs there long before the wreck pile was discovered and the salvage crews started working the wreck. A lot of the cobs there tend to be more round than those found on the 1715 Fleet sites and are earlier.
It is always a good idea to try to figure out where new sand came from no matter if it is part of a renourishment project or the natural flow of sand. It is always good to sample various areas and try to determine what kind of stuff might be in it.
Sometimes you can tell a lot about where the sand came from by looking at the texture of the sand and it's color. Sand varies from very course shell sand to very fine dust or clay and in color from white to black.
Back in the eighties I knew a fellow that worked that beach a lot and found a lot of cobs, then one morning a life guard on his morning exercise swim looked down and saw an exposed cannon. After that the salvage work started.
When you dig a hole, notice the type of sand on the surface and in the hole. Often you'll see distinct layers.
Notice the different layers in the dunes that might be exposed. The different layers will indicate different time periods, sometimes large time periods but sometimes only hours apart. Some layers near the surface are continually shifted while other deep layers may not have been disturbed for centuries.
In the dunes, there will often be a layer where most of the old wreck coins will be found. When that layer it is washed out onto the beach and is a good sign to detect heavily.
If you ever find a newly exposed layer of clay at or below the water line work it heavily. I always like to see black sand too.
A bowl purchased at a yard sale for $3 sold for over two million.
http://news.msn.com/pop-culture/rare-chinese-bowl-purchased-for-dollar3-sells-for-dollar22m
It is good to learn what you can about what you have, otherwise you could make a big mistake. Of course that goes for detector finds too. Knowledge can help a lot.
One of the things I like so much about detecting is that there is almost always a bit of a mystery and always something to learn. What I don't like, is how many mistakes I made before I learned things.
The other day I mentioned bales of pot being found on Treasure Coast beaches. One person said that the police told him that if you find a bale, don't fool with it - sometimes bales are booby-trapped to explode. There are other good reasons to not touch them, but that is a good warning to be especially careful if you do happen to find a bale. I've seen bales on the beach as have others that I've heard from.
This morning on the Treasure Coast the beaches that I saw are continuing to build. Some have a foot or more of recent sand accumulation on the front beach, making for poor detecting.
I did find one coin line, that happened to be in a brown course line of sand below the shell line but close to the high tide mark. The area closest to the water had new sand but very very few targets of any kind. There might still be some beaches out there that are better, but the ones I saw this morning were very poor.
A cool front came through last night and the wind picked up for a while. The surf this morning was supposed to be 1 - 2 feet but looked a little higher to me. The surf tomorrow is supposed to be down around 1 - 2 feet.
It might be a good time to do some research or hunt around for a different kind of spot to hunt.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
