3/6/17 Report - Treasure Beach Conditions Report. Wreck of the Neva Explored.

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

Looking South From Turtle Trail Access Sunday Afternoon.

Down around the bend to the south there was a little bigger cut and just the top of a few bags were showing.

Looking North From Seagrape Access Sunday Afternoon.

I also looked at Rio Mar and Pepper Park Sunday afternoon.  Rio Mar was about the same as the above two locations.  Pepper Park showed even less promise.

I talked to one nice fellow at Turtle Trail who had looked at most of the beaches from Bonsteel down to Turtle Trail, and he said none of them looked much good.

As you might have noticed, the wind has shifted.  It is more now out of the east and tomorrow supposed to be more from the southeast.

I took a look at some of the South Hutchinson Island beaches this morning and they had not improved at all the past couple of days.

John Brooks Monday Morning.

John Brooks is not any better than it was too days ago - maybe a little worse.  Note the seaweed.

Most of the beaches I've looked at the past few days have a big protective pile of sand in front of the beach.  At low tide the surf is crashing on the front of the bar.

The surf will be decreasing daily for a week or so now.  I'm going to lower my Treasure Coast Treasure Beach Detecting Scale back to a 1 (poor).

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Archaeologists located the first traces of the Neva in 2012 when remains of cooking fires and Russian axes were found along the rugged coast of Kruzov Island. Beginning in August 2012, several attempts at underwater survey were conducted through the use of a marine magnetometer, sonar, and scuba dives. The dense kelp, iron-laden rocks, and frequent heavy seas, however, made these efforts all but impossible. Armed with a National Science Foundation grant and working closely with the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and U.S. Forest Service, specialists from the United States, Canada, and Russia returned to the site in 2015. Their excavations uncovered traces of an early Russian-period camp where the scientists recovered period navigator’s chart dividers, ships nails, and battered gunflints likely used to spark warming fires. Pieces of copper hull sheathing were found cut and fashioned into possible awls and a crude fishhook. Burned bone and shell at the site was found to be wild game and shellfish. Many artifacts were clearly those of the lost Neva crew. The team also discovered a previously unknown Tlingit camp, occupied at least 50 years after the shipwreck. 

In 2016 the team returned to further study the site. Eroded from the survivor’s camp was a scabbard fragment of bronze or brass, possibly from a Naval-style dirk or dagger. More scraps of copper hull sheathing were found, hammered into useful survival items. Additional cooking fires and food bones were found, confirming the Neva survivors were organized enough to send out parties to fish, scavenge, and even dispatch deer. The crew appeared to occupy a single large camp, possibly in makeshift tents or shelters salvaged from sailcloth and other wreckage....

Here is the link for more about that.

http://www.capitalcityweekly.com/stories/030117/ae_1273030087.shtml 

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net