Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.
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| Picture of the Steamship St. Lucie Docked Not Far From Jensen. |
In the old days the Indian River Lagoon was one of the main highways on the Treasure Coast. Boat traffic was used by early settlers. Later there was steamship service.
Here is a picture of the steamship St. Lucie at dock near Jensen. I haven't found the name of any others, but feel there must have been others.
If any of you know of other steamships that sailed the Indian River along the Treasure Coast, I'd like to hear or read about that. I've done a little research on that but haven't found very much.
You will occasionally see old things along or in the river. One day just walking along Indian River Drive I saw a check-stamped pottery shard. That was a surprise.
Back after the hurricanes of 2004, the west side of the Indian River was lined with bottles. It really was amazing. They were solid along the water line.
The bottles gradually disappeared. There weren't any to be seen for a few years. I didn't know if they would ever return because many of them came from the banks where people used to throw their garbage. That, of course, was in the days before they had garbage service.
After the hurricanes they put sheets of concrete blocks over the banks of the river to prevent Indian River Drive from getting washed out again. I thought with all of that we might not ever see the bottles again.
Last year a few of them started to appear. And in the past few months some of the older ones started to show up again in spots where there was erosion along the water line.
My guess now is that there are still tons of them covered by sand that will be washed up again some day.
Years and years ago an embossed blob top beer bottles was found in the sand down by where the steamship shown above was docked. The dock is no longer there. It was destroyed by a hurricane way back in the day.
The thing that revealed the bottle was a spot of moss in the sand. The moss, or seaweed or whatever it was, was growing on the bottle. That bottle was not along the water line but out in the shallow water.
There are still the remains of a few garbage burn piles that can be found on the banks of the river. Not many though, because of the erosion control structures.
I've never gone out to hunt fossils along the Indian River but have twice seen fossils there. The first was this nice Great White tooth found along the edge of the river
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| Great White Shark Fossil Tooth. |
It is a very nice example with sharp serrations. It is over two inches long.
One other time I was walking along the river bottles and noticed a fossil tooth of an extinct horse. That was a surprise too. I didn't really think that would be what it was when I first saw it.
Even though the fossils are there, I think in most places they are very rare.
When it comes to metal detecting along or in the shallow water of the Indian River, it is very difficult. There is a ton of trash on the banks and in the shallow water.
I did spot an old pair of ear rings in one old burn pile once.
Even without a metal detector you can find all kinds of stuff along the river. Those that I've mentioned today include include pot shards, old bottles and fossils, all of which I have seen when not hunting them.
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The surf predictions and wave data is now found below the popular posts list.
This week we'll have very smooth surf and south winds.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net
