8/22/16 Report - Another Cache From the 2004 Hurricanes. Old Great Lakes Shipwreck. Fort Benton Dig. Fiona and Other Weather Systems.

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

Another Post-Hurricane Cache
Source: 2015 Orlando Sentinel Clipping
sent to me by Darrel S.

This cache was found by Joel Ruth in Brevard County just after Hurricane Jeanne.  I've been talking a good bit about caches lately and decided to add this one.

There were really a lot of finds after Jeanne and Francis.  Coins were found in bunches by a number of  detectorists after the hurricanes.  I've shown only a very few of those that I know about.

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Zika appears to be spreading.  Portect youself from mosquitos in any case.  Here is a link about that.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article96420487.html

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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The second-oldest confirmed shipwreck in the Great Lakes, an American-built, Canadian-owned sloop that sank in Lake Ontario more than 200 years ago, has been found, a team of underwater explorers said Wednesday...

The sloop Washington was built on Lake Erie in Pennsylvania in 1798 and was used to transport people and goods between western New York, Pennsylvania and Ontario. It was placed on skids and hauled by oxen teams across the Niagara Isthmus to Lake Ontario in 1802 after being sold to Canadian merchants...

Here is the link.

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/17/explorers-find-second-oldest-confirmed-shipwreck-great-lakes/

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FORT BENTON – Perhaps as many as 120 years have passed since the historic old Fort Benton had both its blockhouses, defensive towers at opposite corners of the fur-trade-era fort...

An archaeological dig is underway to determine exactly where the southwest blockhouse was, its pieces long ago repurposed...

Here is that link.

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/08/15/digging-history-fort-benton/88810422/

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This has been a tough year for me.  Jan. 1 I broke and tooth, then a multitude of things happened including my mother's hospitalization, then I spent this past weekend in the hospital.  My luck has been as bad as the weather had been hot.  I've had a two decades worth of inconvenience in a single year. I'm fine now. It was a weird thing, and I'm back to normal. Hope the worst of this year is over.

I was headed to the walk-in clinic when I got sick as a dog and had to pull into an gas station.  I drove over to an unpaved exit that I thought was pretty much out of the way where I had to open the door and throw-up everything in side me, while some fellow blew his horn for me to move because I guess I was inconveniencing him.  I really appreciated that.  Actually I was too sick at the time to pay it much other than passing attention.

It has been month after month of the same type of weather.  I'm hoping for a change there too.  I'd like to see a good long storm but not a hurricane.

Source: nhc.noaa,gov

Fiona is still out there and heading towards Bermuda.

The second one (yellow) has not strengthened yet, but could head our way.

The third is expected to become a cyclone very soon, but is still expected to head out into the North Atlantic.

This morning the surfing web site predicted a ten foot surf for the Treasure Coast, but that didn't last long.  It is not back down to around three feet.  Those big bumps you see in the surf report 7 to 10 out seldom last.

We'll have to wait a little longer before we get any kind of a good idea about what these weather systems will bring to the Treasure Coast.

Glad to be out of the hospital.  I did my last post from the hospital bed.  First time I was a hospital patient in the last sixty years or so.  Don't want to be one again.

I still have a lot of finds and stuff to show you.  Sometimes I'm missing a detail that I'd like to include and don't have the time to spend researching it.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/15/16 Report - Flintlock Pistol From Treasure Coast Beach. Thoughts On Religious Relics. World Wide Web 25 Years Old This Month.

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

Flintlock Pistol Found After Hurricanes of 2004.
Photo submitted by Darrel Strickland.

Lately I've been showing some noteworthy treasures that were found a few years ago, especially after the hurricanes of 2004, which was some of the best hunting we've had since the legendary Thanksgiving Storm of 1984.  A lot of treasure was found by a lot of people after Francis and Jeanne. You've never heard of most of it, and I'm only showing a few pieces.

The flintlock pistol shown above was found by Tom K., who found the pistol "at Wabasso Beach going north towards Golden Sands in the wet sand near the water's edge."  Thanks for sending the photo and email Darrel.

I don't know if Tom ever got the pistol cleaned up or not, but he wasn't in a hurry to clean it at the time because he thought it might be damaged in the process.

Tom also found some rings that day.

Here is charm or rosary piece found back then too.

Photo submitted by Darrel S.

I've shown some of the famous religious pieces found by the salvage divers, and Laura Strolia has provided authoritative research on some of the most fascinating ones. Click the following link to go back to a post containing some of Laura's research on the Pelican of Piety.

  http://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/search?q=pelican+piety

Before Laura's research was published, the gold Pelican of Piety was often mistakenly referred to as a reliquary.  A reliquary is meant to contain a relic.

I recently found an article about first-class relics being sold on the internet.  A first-class relic is an item or piece of an item directly associated with event's of Christ's life or the physical remains of a saint, for example bone or hair.

One person wrote an article about selling first class relics and wants the practice stopped. The author of that article, Ryan Scheel, had the following to say.

The listing of first class relics “is incredibly insensitive to the Catholic faith in way I doubt would be tolerated for other religions,” Scheel said. 

“But also...common decency should tell eBay that profiting off of the sale of body parts is ghastly and unethical, no matter who the remains belonged to in life.”That's why Scheel decided to launch a petition calling for eBay to remove the listings of the first class relics. He hopes to obtain signatures from at least 25,000 Catholics in order to alert the site of the illicit sales.”

Here is the link to that article.

http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/US.php?id=14075

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Did you know that August 5 was the 25th anniversary of the first web site.  That web site described the WorldWideWeb project and said the following.

"The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents," the world's first public website reads, going on to explain how others can also create their own web pages.

"The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should be freely available to anyone."

I found that information on thehackernews.com, which is a good site for those who want to stay informed about computer security.

Many large corporations have been hacked by China.  Google admitted they were hacked.   If Google, who has all of those bright computer scientists, couldn't prevent being hacked, who can?  If you don't maintain the finest security practices and if you have anything that the major players might want on your computer, you probably have been hacked, whether you know it or not.

Computer security isn't all technical.  A lot of it is behavioral.  Hackers take advantage of natural and naive human behavior.

On a side note, the Stuxnet super-virus was created to damage Iran's nuclear centrifuges, and it did its job fairly well even though the controllers were isolated.  Somebody had to use a USB or some other portable storage device to install it the virus.   More powerful versions are now being developed.

I started this post talking about a centuries old flintlock pistol, and ended it with cyber warfare.  How things have changed!

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Here is one note on old rings that appear large enough to be worn by a giant or on a big toe.  They were made to be worn over a glove.

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There are no storms right now, and the surf will run around one or two feet for the next several days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/17/15 Report - Can A Storm Uncover As Much Treasure As A Hurricane? Question Answered.

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

Wabasso After Hurricane Francis, Sept. 2004.
Photo submitted by Ron J.

Yesterday Ron J. sent me an email along with above photo and posed an interesting question.  Here is what Ron said in his email.

Please see attached :  Photo of Wabasso beach just after they opened the bridge and before they closed the beach access right after Hurricane Frances, September 2004.

It was all I could do to take a few photos as we where dealing with property damage and shock of the eye of the storm going right over us.

I don't know what was found after that storm but you can see from that photo how much sand has been put back on to that beach. Note the Disney Hotel beach ramp in the background.

I really picked up on beach detecting with my father after all the finds from the 1984 Thanksgiving noreaster storm...

I have an Idea for a Poll.  Make a poll asking for finds made after known storms and compare that info to known erosion caused by these known storms...  This might answer the question:  Do objects really need a Major Hurricane  to be exposed or is a minor noreaster storm more effective?

That is a great question Ron.  I often said that it doesn't take a hurricane, but I haven't backed it up with data.  Your question made me really think about it, and although I don't think I can conduct a poll that would produce data that would answer that question, I did some research and found some data that I find very convincing.

That data is found in a NOAA publication with the title The Florida East Coast Thanksgiving Holiday Storm of 1984 by Raymond Biedinger, Clifford Brock, Federico Gonzales, and Burt Sylvern.

Here is the link.  http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/mlb/pdfs/Nov_1984_storm.pdf

As you probably know, the Thanksgiving 1984 storm is legendary in treasure lore.  Notice that it was a storm and not a hurricane.  

I'll present some of the NOAA report below and point out by bolding and underlining some of the statements that I think are most note worthy.  Here goes.

...The meteorological conditions just described produced one of the most damaging storms to affect the eastern coastal sections of Florida during the past several decades. Much of the damage from Fernandina Beach southward to North Miami Beach, nearly 400 miles, was caused by the easterly winds of gale force with gusts as high as 60 miles an hour blowing for nearly four days. This action of the wind over the ocean produced shoreward moving swells of around 20 feet which pounded the Florida east coast and produced the most severe beach erosion in recent years in many areas. An example of the destruction was the reduction of the newly completed l100 foot pier at St. Augustine to 300 feet. Sand dunes were obliterated leaving barrier islands void of any natural protection against the next onslaught of a coastal storm in the future. To add to the destructiveness, the highest monthly astronomical tide period coincided with the highest period of storm tides which occurred on the morning of Thursday and Friday, the 22nd and 23rd. All of this produced tides 4 to 6 feet above mean yea level (MSL} at times of high tide. In some places, this was the highest tide in the last 30 years. Alt Mayport, Florida, just north of Jacksonville, the tide of 5.2 feet above MSL was the third highest tide of record. Much of state road A1A, the famous coastal highway, was closed in Indian River County between Vero Beach and Sebastian Inlet because of high water. In this area several beach front buildings collapsed, and 600 to 1,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes. In Palm Beach County, five blocks of A1A were seriously damaged by the high tides and heavy surf. Bridges were closed because of flooded approaches which caused some barrier islands including the large Hutchinson Island to become isolated for periods of time around the time of high tide. In the storm's aftermath, severe coastal beach erosion stretched from Jacksonville to Palm Beach. ...

 At the West Palm Beach weather office, a new station rainfall record was set on Thanksgiving Day for the greatest amount in a calendar day, 7.41 inches....

Another factor was that these strong onshore winds continued for many days. Winds of near gale force (about 40 miles an hour) began blowing along the north Florida coast the evening of the 20th. They did not subside until late on the 24th. Therefore, much of Florida experienced strong onshore winds for about 4 whole days. These winds were frequently between 30 and 40 miles an hour. The direction of the winds was from the north northeast which is probably the best angle of incidence for beach erosion along the coast from Fernandina Beach to Palm Beach. The coastline south of Palm Beach was spared from most of the adverse effects of the storm because the wind was actually blowing offshore throughout much of the storm. However, this northwest wind caused significant damage to the coastlines of the western Bahama Islands Friday and Saturday. This was all due to the position of the storm center remaining over Grand Bahama Island from early Thursday morning through early Saturday...

As noted earlier, the time of the month that the storm occurred was coincident with the highest astronomical tides of the month and nearly the highest spring tide of the year. Tide tables indicated that the highest predicted tides for the month of November fell on the mornings of the 22nd and the 23rd, exactly during the time of the highest storm tide. Reports from the storm survey teams of the Florida Department of Natural Resources indicate that the storm tide was over 6 feet above low mean water. Tide gauge readings at Mayport were 7.5 feet above mean low water or 5.2 feet above mean sea level. The one factor of the storm episode which magnified the entire situation was the nearly stationary nature of the storm for 3 days. This lack of movement produced the prolonged onshore winds which resulted in at least 4 days of heavy surf pounding the shore. Portions of the coastline experienced 9 high tides during this period, with each succeeding high tide higher than the previous one, thus making the erosion of sand greater with each tide. These are the reasons for the extensive damage that resulted from this particular storm....

I must have said hundred times that the angle of the waves is important and that North/Northeast waves are the most effective for creating erosion.  I learned that from personal observation.   As far as I can recall this is the first time I've seen that statement made in such an authoritative source.  

I know a lot was found after the hurricanes of 2004, but there were also a lot of finds after the Thanksgiving Storm.

An old issue of Lost Treasure Magazine (I hope to find it again ) once reported that during the Thanksgiving weekend of 1984 over 2,000 silver coins and at least 16 gold coins were recovered by metal detectorists.  It was reported that "The coins lay on the hard coquina bottom under a layer of sand and silt and had been there since the day the Regla, capitana of the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet came ashore."  

Take into account that in 1984 most communication was via word of mouth or print.  Those that didn't live on the Treasure Coast did not get word as soon and there was not so much sharing and discussion of finds.  1984 was different from 2004 in a variety of ways that makes it difficult to compare the two time periods as far as finds.  I discussed that in a recent post.

I personally know of some of the finds made during the 1984 storm, and know that one of the gold coins was a Royal.

I personally know of a lot of coins found after the 2004 hurricanes.  One person found twenty something half reales at Bon Steele, for example.  I personally know of other finds after the hurricanes of 2004, including both gold and silver.  The erosion was very far back on some of the beaches.

At this point and this many years after both 1984 and 2004 I have no hope of getting anything like precise data that would fairly compare 1984 and 2004.  I do think though, after reading the NOAA report about the 1984 storm, we can confidently say that it does not require a hurricane to cause massive erosion sufficient to make available many old shipwreck items.

In summary, I haven't provided definitive data that proves that a minor storm is more effective than a hurricane, but I think I can confidently say that a storm (producing gusts of up to 60 mph) can be just as effective in producing finds as a hurricane.

I remember mentioning on multiple occasions over the years about the effectiveness of a storm that sits offshore and churns for a while.  In the case of the 1984 storm, the NOAA report said, ... much of Florida experienced strong onshore winds for about 4 whole days.  It was stationary for about four days.  It was also accompanied by a period of well-timed high tides.

Although the Thanksgiving Storm of 1984 was an exceptional storm, and maybe few other storms will have all of the factors in line to create the same level of effects, the hurricanes of 2004 were also exceptional.  For one thing there were three different hurricanes in a short period of time.

Other major hurricanes, Hurricane Andrew as one example, failed to produce the same level of coastal erosion even though it produced very high water and a lot of damage.

You might recall that Hurricane Andrew was a quick hitting storm that passed over South Florida very quickly.

Well, I think that is all for now.  I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.  That was a great question Ron.  I'm glad I looked into it.

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I'd like to receive any photos you might be able to find showing the Treasure Coast beaches immediately after the Thanksgiving 1984 storm.  Please send them if you find any.

I don't want to see a hurricane because of all the damage and destruction. Don't want to be a downer, but going metal detecting when there is so much damage and so many people needing help just doesn't feel right to me.  It isn't all about me anymore.  In fact, none of it is.

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On the Treasure Coast we still have a one foot surf predicted into next week.  No change there.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net