Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Romans saw wreckage. I read somewhere that wreckage besides ballast stones was visible still in the 1940s and 50s. Today there is little left to see. A lot of the ballast stones have been removed - some very systematically.  |
| Douglass Beach Looking North Near Low Tide Tuesday. |
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| Heavily Eroded Fort Pierce South Jetty This Near Low Tide |
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| South Hutchinson Island Around Noon. |
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| Another South Hutchinson Island Beach Near Low Tide Tuesday |
There were a good number of beach goers out taking advantage of the warm weather after Christmas. There were no big crowds or anything, but a more people than normal for the Treasure Coast.
The beaches did not look very good for metal detecting. There was one beach that had a firm front. I will take another look at it in a day or two.
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You are probably familiar with the name Bernard Romans, who published a book in 1775 concerning the natural history of Florida and in the process mentioned shipwrecks observed along the Treasure Coast and including a map. For those of you who are not intimately familiar the Romans book, I decided to post a couple of excerpts from pages 273 and 274. Here they are.
Not only did Romans see the remains of the wrecks, but he also made note of the fact that "pistareens" were repeatedly found by those walking the beach after "eastern gales." He goes on to speculate that more would be found on the wrecks. Remember, he wrote this in 1775, sixty years after the sinking of the 1715 Fleet.
Here is the link to a facsimile edition of the book which you can read online.
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Here is another item from the "nothing new under the sun" category. The email scams you see today were going on long ago - just without email. The following excerpt is from a 1920 issue of the Washington D.C. Evening Star.
The letter goes on to tell the reader how to receive a reward amounting to one/third the amount stored in the trunk.
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Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net