2/13/14 Report - Treasure Coast Beach Combing, Time Capsule & Reading Beaches 101 (Part III)

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

I'll continue with my Reading Beaches 101 series below after a few other items.  If you haven't read the previous two posts on Reading Beaches you might benefit by doing that before continuing with this post.

This has been a damp and cool winter on the Treasure Coast.  Today the wind is from the West as much of the East Coast gets hit by ice and snow.  Storms and floods continue to hit the UK.

On the Treasure Coast the surf is only around two feet today.  The wind is blowing out.  That has been the way it has been much of 2014. 

Conditions for beach detecting on the Treasure Coast remain poor, but things like fossils, shells and pot shards are still available on some beaches.

Eva S. sent me an email saying, ... I live up here in Cape Canaveral and almost daily drive south to the beaches across Patrick's Air Force Base, the beaches south of Melbourne, Sebastian and Vero Beach.  One of the most productive beaches I've discovered up to now for those who like to collect truly beautiful shells are the beaches across Patricks Base.  I have the most beautiful Murex, Tulips, Olive, whelks...etc  I have also found pottery sherds and very interesting metal pieces.

I found my first piece of porcelain the other day on a beach between Sebastian and Vero Beach-- I was thrilled.  I then found my first ancient huge shark tooth on another beach between Sebastian and Vero.  These are very exciting finds for me. I love beach combing.

I was inspired to finally buy a metal detector.

My first day was a disappointment because I really thought I'd find my first Spanish coin!  I quickly realized how vast the beaches are and how unrealistic my expectations were!  It'll take a long time before I find anything, I'm now sure.

I found my first piece of porcelain the other day on a beach between Sebastian and Vero Beach-- I was thrilled.  I then found my first ancient huge shark tooth on another beach between Sebastian and Vero.  These are very exciting finds for me. I love beach combing.

I was inspired to finally buy a metal detector.

My first day was a disappointment because I really thought I'd find my first Spanish coin!  I quickly realized how vast the beaches are and how unrealistic my expectations were!  It'll take a long time before I find anything, I'm now sure.

Keep at it Eva.  As I've been saying, the beach conditions have been poor lately.  You never know when you'll make your first great find though.  It might be quick or it might take quite a while.

Thanks for sharing!

The price of gold has been making a nice comeback the last few weeks.


Back to beach talk.

The normal movement of wave energy in deep water is circular.  That is why it is not necessary to anchor yourself or fight the waves when water detecting.  (I've discussed that before.)  If you just go with it, the water will move you a little one way, then the other, and then return you to where you were.  That is if the water is deep enough.

Anyhow, as the waves get into more shallow water, they break.  The crest becomes more narrow than the trough and the crest falls in on the trough.  The crest crashes on the beach with good force and moves sand or whatever.   The water slows as it washes up the beach and drops whatever it was pushing.  The water then slowly flows down the slope into the sea leaving sand and other things behind.

When a wave crashes on the beach, even heavy objects can be moved.  In my experiment that I mentioned the other day to see how different lead objects of different weight and shape were moved, I used a bucket of water to simulate a single wave breaking on the beach, and saw that all of the lead objects moved a considerable amount.  That was nothing compared to storm driven waves.

You can see for yourself how the water moves different items differently.  Just the other day I was watching the swash near low tide on a day when there was very little surf.  I could see shells and other things at the edge of the water.  When the water came in, some would move up the beach very quickly, others less quickly, and other didn't move at all.

The less dense items, depending to some extent upon other factors such as shape, moved the most.  The light items up the slope quickly and then back out quickly as the water went back out.  I could pretty much tell what an item was composed of by the way it moved in the swash.  Try it sometime.

Shape did make a difference.  Rounded items easily moved up the beach and then rolled back down just as quickly.  It takes more to move a disk or coin shaped object.

We haven't yet considered cuts.  I've explained how the water creates cuts before.  I've stood there and watched them form.  I've also seen them disappear.  They can disappear very quickly.

Cuts occur only occasionally.  High water does not automatically create cuts.  I saw that for myself after hurricane Andrew in South Florida and saw it along the Treasure Coast when Sandy passed by.  The water got very high on the beach on both occasions but created only a few small cuts, and in many places no cuts at all.

Everybody talks about Nor'easters.  Why is a Nor'easter any different than a Southeaster?

I will discuss that in a future post and also talk more about cuts.


A time capsule buried by Steve Jobs was buried, lost and relocated and dug up.   It is now receiving a lot of attention because a new series of Diggers is about to begin and their first program is about finding Job's time capsule.

I have a hard time calling it a time capsule when it is only 30 years old.

Anyhow, here is more about that.

http://www.geek.com/apple/lost-steve-jobs-time-capsule-found-after-30-years-contains-prized-mouse-1584793/


Thats all for now.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net