Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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The first thing to notice is the dead bushes in the foreground. They were killed by high water not too long ago. That is a good sign.
They obviously were growing for quite a while before the beach eroded and the salt water killed them. That is the kind of thing you look for.
The high water also created a little cut behind the bushes. Items falling out of the cut were trapped by the bushes. I always like to see something like that.
In this case I didn't need the bushes to tell me that erosion was occurring because I am familiar enough with this beach to know just by looking at the sand. A couple of months ago the water line was at least ten yards farther out from the bushes.
It is good to know your beaches. If it is a beach that you plan to detect from time to time, try to create a three dimensional mental model of the beach so you can recognize where the beach is losing sand and where it is gaining sand at any time. This beach would look very fluid if you were to use time lapse photography.
If I wasn't familiar with this beach and didn't know where the sand was before, the bushes would tell a lot.
When you visit a new beach, look at the vegetation for signs. Newly exposed roots will also tell you the sand is moving away from an area that was stable enough to provide for the roots in the past.
And of course notice any stable landmarks such as tree stumps or big rocks that you can use to judge the level of sand.
In this photo, just right of center is a U shaped dip, with the center of the mouth of the U being roughly at the bottom right corner of the photo. If you drew an arrow up from that corner at a ninety degree angle, that would be about the center of the dip.
My first signal that I dug here this morning turned out to be a ring. That gets your heart pumping, but then things slowed down, as you would expect.
The morning started out cloudy and wet on the Treasure Coast but cleared up quickly.
The surfing web sites are predicting a 4 - 6 foot surf today and tomorrow, and then gradually decreasing for the next few days after that.
The tides are not doing much. The low tide tonight will be about 10 PM, but the low tide won't be very low.
The wind will be mostly from the northeast the next couple of days, but nothing that will really help detecting conditions.
I found what they call aqua socks for under five dollars at Wal-Mart. That is inexpensive. Some light foot wear can be helpful.
There are some nice western and coin auctions now on iCollector in addition to the Sedwick Coins auction.
When you dig a deep hole sometimes it works better when you use your hands to feel the target. That, of course, also has its disadvantages, such as the possibility of getting cut. But it does somethimes help to feel the target, its size and shape and orientation.
If you like gold coins and want to know which might be good purchases, here is a nice little article.
http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=26805
Civil War artifacts from camp Lawton are being conserved. Veterinarians are assisting by x-raying corroded iron objects.
Here is the link for more of the story.
http://www.thecoastalsource.com/2013/05/01/georgia-southern-archaeologists-conserve-civil-war-artifacts/
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
