10/11/18 Report - Florida Panhandle Area Shipwreck Survey Report. Mission Nombre de Dios. Columbus' Map. FBI Hunts Treasure?

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

As you know by now, the portions of the Florida Panhandle got hit hard by Hurricane Michael.  I have not doubt that some old things will be uncovered up around Alligator Point and Dog Island, where nice old Spanish coins have been found before.

If you want to become a little more familiar with the shipwrecks of the area, here is a link to a lengthy and  detailed archaeological report.

You will find a lot of interesting information in that report.

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In the 1950s, Father Charles Spellman, a priest and archaeologist in St. Augustine, made a historic discovery at the Mission Nombre de Dios.

Spellman uncovered the remnants of what is thought to be the first stone building and shrine dedicated to Our Lady of La Leche, a building believed to have been constructed in 1677. He discovered artifacts and made a map of the site, but he never shared his discovery with the archaeological community...

Archaeologists have rediscovered the site and will be trying to learn more about it.  Here is the link.

http://www.staugustine.com/news/20181009/mysterious-17th-century-building-being-uncovered-at-mission

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Dean R. and SuperRick sent links to this story.

The father-son duo spent years combing this bit of Pennyslvania wilderness with high-end metal detectors, drills and other tools to prospect for a fabled cache of Civil War gold. They felt certain they'd discovered the hiding place of the long-lost booty, leading the FBI to the mountainous, heavily wooded area last March.

Now, at the end of the court-sanctioned excavation, the FBI escorted the treasure hunters to the snow-covered site and asked them what they saw. They gazed at the pit. Not so much as a glimmer of gold dust, let alone the tons of precious metal they said an FBI contractor's instruments had detected.

"We were embarrassed," Dennis Parada told The Associated Press in his first interview since the well-publicized dig last winter. "They walk us in, and they make us look like dummies. Like we messed up."

Since that day, however, neighbors' accounts of late-night excavation and FBI convoys have fueled suspicions that the agency isn't telling the whole truth. The Paradas are challenging the FBI's account of the dig, insisting that something had to have been buried in the woods near Dents Run, about 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh..

Here is the link.


https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/09/treasure-hunters-challenge-the-fbi-over-a-dig-for-legendary-gold.html

A lot of questions to consider in this one.

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Here is an article about the map Columbus might have used.


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture-exploration/2018/10/columbus-map-discovery-secrets-new-world/

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Well, Michael has left Florida but continues to cause problems.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

On the Treasure Coast the surf is down around two feet now, but the tides are still high.

Remember those in the Panhandle.
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/8/18 Hurricane Michael Weather Update. Monday 1 PM.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

I did my 10/8/18 post earlier.  It is still there for you to see, but Michael is now getting a lot of attention.  Beside that there is another system coming off of Africa that we need to watch.

But back to Michael - Michael is expected to strengthen, becoming a Category 3 hurricane.   Although we had a good idea of what the track would be for several days, it is now time to start really paying attention.

Michael is now expected to become a category three hurricane, and is headed towards the Florida Panhandle.  Hopefully it will weaken.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

This is something we all need to watch, but especially the Florida West Coast.

Source: Ventusky.com

Here is the Wed. 12 PM Ventusky.com wind speed map.

If this is the way it works out, the Treasure Coast will be getting south and southwest winds.

The Treasure Coast surf is expected to peak tomorrow at four to six feet.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

We are also still having nice high tides on top of that.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/8/17 Report - Knowing Your Beaches: Classifying and Categorizing for Metal Detecting. The Blog Poll. Hurricane Nate.

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

Hurricane Nate caused a lot of flooding and road and beach closures in the western Florida Panhandle.  There is a storm surge and still high waves.

I wanted to talk a little about the blog poll today.  I had a lot of information entered and lost it so I'll start over.    I'll do a little now, and if I have the patience, more later.

The current blog poll should provide some good and interesting information.  It will unoubtedly give us some good insight but also leave some unanswered questions.  Already the early responses made it clear that cobs are found other places than on the Treasure Coast.  That isn't surprising, but those of us  who live here focus so much on the Treasure Coast, that we might not think much of hunting other areas of Florida and the world.  It is always fun to travel and detect new places.

People have reported cob finds from both other areas of Florida and areas outside of Florida.  As you probably know, cobs can be found on the West Coast of Florida, Canaveral area, West Florida, and many other places.  I have regular readers from North Carolina and other states and regions where cobs are found.

I am hoping that you will take the little time necessary to respond to the poll, because when we have good information we all win.  You don't need to be afraid of giving away your favorite spot.  The poll covers five years and does not tell anyone what area is hot now or next week or next year.  And we all know that things change.

In retrospect, I wish I would have specified a longer time period than five years.  Hurricane Sandy was about five years ago, and I'd like you to include that time period.  Since then beach detecting conditions on the Treasure Coast have been poor more than not.

If you read this blog and get anything out of my free work, I hope you'll make a contribution in the form of your response to the polls.

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There was an 8-mile stretch of beach that I detected frequently in the 1990s.  I looked at it as consisting of 15 different zones.

The first zone was a very narrow swimming beach where a lot of people crowded on nice days.  It produced a lot of good quality jewelry on a regular basis.

Moving north and going around a bend was what I considered zone 2.  This was a longer and wider shallow-water area that produced significantly less jewelry, and the jewelry there was of a significantly lower quality, even though the area was still in the same park.

Moving farther north was zone 3 - a dead zone.  Almost nothing came out of there.  It was in front of a condo, but it seemed few people from that condo ever went outdoors, let alone swimming.

Zone 4 was the next area, which was in front of a condo or resort that was closed.  The beach there produced relatively little, but on a few occasions when the beach eroded, you could find good coin lines with a little jewelry on the eroded slope.

Zone 5 was a private beach club.  A lot of people went to the beach and swam there.  I found less there than I thought I should and always suspected there was somebody else that cleaned that location regularly.  I wouldn't doubt if it was some of the staff of the club.  They didn't like me being there and I once was told I couldn't detect there, but I knew better.  I called the county offices and they told me the public had every right to use that beach back to the erosion control markers. Public tax dollars maintained that part of the beach.

Zone 6 was another dead zone.  One or two nice pieces came out of the shallow water even though it was covered with sea grass and had  lot of aluminum junk.

Zone 7 was around a sand spit that extended out into the shallow water where a lot of boaters parked.  The interesting feature of this zone was the remains of a wreck  under the beach where the sand bar joined.

Zone 8 was a good hole.  It was in front of an active high-scale resort.  Not as many items as in zone 1, but higher quality.  Some very good finds came from there even though there was known competition.  I believe that it was resort staff.  A fellow stood and watched me working the water one day and left cursing when he saw me dig a gold chain in very shallow water.  I could tell that  a lot of my finds from there were not the easy finds and were things somebody could easily miss.

Continuing north some more, next was zone 9, another condominium.  This one had more active people and produced a few good finds.  It was much better than the other condominiums but not nearly as good as a few of the other zones.

Zone 10 was long dead zone.

Zone 11 was a big public park with a huge shallow swimming area.  This swimming area would produce very few coins but almost always a piece of gold or two.  It was visited by more detectorists than any other zone other than possibly zone 1.

Zone 12 was at the north end of the parking areas.  Most park visitors stayed in the main swimming area just south of there.  Zone 12 was a relatively small area where it seemed people parked before the paved parking was put in.  This area produced coins and jewelry dating back into the 1800s.

Zone 13 was larger and had a much lower concentration of coins.  The quantity of finds was low and the quantity was no better than average.

Zone 14 was  rock outcropping that was usually covered by sand, however after one storm there was a virtual carpet of older silver coins and jewelry there.

The next zone (zone 15) was a small area where people in the past evidently parked along the road and visited the nearby small beach.  The coins there were generally mid to early 1900s.  They were usually very heavily corroded.


I have a number of reasons for going through the list, but mainly wanted to give some idea of how you should get to know your beaches as potential detecting sites. 

I might expand on this some other time in the near future..

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Sunday the wind is from the south and the surf is down again.  There is a nice high tide today though.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/4/16 Report - Hermine and Spanish History and Treasure of the Florida Panhandle. Spanish Cross of Grand Mesa. Medieval Finds.

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

Hermine didn't do much to the Treasure Coast but it did a lot of damage to the Panhandle beaches.  I mentioned some of the history of that area a couple of days ago.  It so happens that Dan B. was on his way to the Apalachicola area and might get in a little detecting up that way in the wake of Hermine.

It is an area that has a lot of history and treasure even though we don't hear much about it.  Below is a little information about San Marcos de Apalache from a link I gave you a couple of days ago.  As you will see, there is a case to be made that St. Marks is the oldest European settlement in the U. S.

This (St. Marks) is the site of the original Spanish mission in the area. It was established about 400 years ago. You will see that the town of St Marks claims to have been established in 1527, if this is true it would make St Marks the oldest European settlement in the US.  The old fort site a state park and has an interesting visitor's center. When in St. Marks eat at Posey’s "home of the topless oyster", the smoked mullet is very good, and of course the oysters can't be beat. This is a genuine Florida redneck experience. There are people who believe St. Marks to be the oldest inhabitation in the US. No records exist to prove it was inhabited before the early 1600's but there is some evidence. In 1519 Ponce de Leon may have landed there, and many believe that Wakulla Springs was his famed Fountain of Youth. Cabaza de Vaca probably spent the winter of 1528/1529 here. Cabaza de Vaca landed with a party of about 300 men near Tampa, with the objective of finding gold and conquering. The ships were lost and he made his way mostly overland from there to Mexico City over a period of about 8 years, of the original party only 3, including Cabaza de Vaca survived. Anyway there are people who believe Cabaza de Vaca's group left settlers at St. Marks, this is the basis for their claim to the 1527 date. There are also those who believe that when DeSoto passed the area in 1540 he left settlers. In some of the early reports of the 1604 missionaries who landed at St. Marks there appears to be reference to Spanish already living in the area. If in fact St. Marks was first settled before 1604 it was most likely by someone from Cabaza de Vaca's party. If so it is the oldest European settlement north of Mexico City, but even if it was not settled until 1604 it was still an important port and settlement many years before the first Englishman set foot on Plymouth Rock. Little remains today of the early settlement, and St. Marks population is probably no more than it was in 1650, but the oysters are still just as good.

Here is the link for more about the Panhandle area.  You'll also read about shipwrecks and other treasures in the Panhandle area.

http://www.alligatorpoint.org/about/fog0000000011.html

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Always take notice of earth being moved in an urban or other potentially productive area.

Medieval building foundations, a Tudor kiln and silver coins are among items that have been unearthed at a development site in the city centre...

A Tudor kiln was discovered, that was most likely used for pottery or tile production, as well as a 16th century well and the foundations of medieval buildings.

Smaller objects such as silver coins, and what appears to be a clasp/pin made of polished bone were also discovered...

Here is the link for more of that story.

http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/14718189.Medieval_artefacts_found_on_city_centre_development_site/----

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A piece of a centuries-old bronze cross found on a rocky side of the Grand Mesa 45 years ago could put a new spin on Spanish exploration in Colorado.

The bit of ceremonial cross – no bigger than a candy bar – disappeared long ago into the archives of some East Coast museum. But in a Da Vinci Code-stoked world that is newly pondering religious symbolism, the missing metal has taken on compelling new mystery. It has sparked a hunt for the rest of the cross and an investigation into what early Spanish explorers were doing on the 10,000- foot-high Grand Mesa.

“I think it would be great if we could find another piece to give us some answers,” said Dave Bailey, chief curator for the Museum of Western Colorado in Grand Junction and member of the Western Investigations Team.

The team will use ultra-sensitive metal detectors to comb a football field-sized area on the west of the mesa over three days this week and will take anything they find to labs at Mesa State College for analysis...

Here is the link for more of that story and the possible significance of the cross.

http://www.denverpost.com/2006/06/19/quest-for-colorados-spanish-cross/

I received another newspaper account of that story from Darrel S.  Thanks Darrel.

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Hermine might do some damage to the beaches in the Northeast.

The Treasure Coast will have a small surf today but maybe up to five feet Tuesday.

We still have a disturbance out by the West Indies that is heading west.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net