12/19/18 Report - More On The Legendary Thanksgiving Storm of 1984. Miscellaneous Comments On A Recent Episode of Oak Island.

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

I've posted information before about what caused some of the best-ever Treasure Coast beach detecting that occurred during the Thanksgiving Storm of 1984.  You've probably heard some of the stories about the treasure found on the beach after that storm.  I've posted some of that in this blog.  People said the information I posted about the storm really helped them, so today I have more of that.  Dale J. sent me a link to The Florida East Coast Thanksgiving Holiday Storm of 1984 by Raymond Biedinger, Clifford Brock,  Federico Gonzales, and Burt Sylvern.  Betweent that report and the one I previously posted, I think you'll understand what it takes to really uncover a lot of old beach treasure.

Here are a couple paragraphs from that report.

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. Several counties were declared emergency areas by the Governor of Florida. The storm tides and high surf alone combined to produce property damage at first estimate of over 8 million dollars along the coast. Figures 18 and 19 show this damage assessment to both public and private property in the individual counties along the coast. (Later poststorm reports from the Florida Department Natural Resources...

If you want to learn more about that, here is the link.

https:/www.weather.gov/media/mlb/marine/Nov_1984_storm.pdf

Thanks Dale!

I added the underlining to the above.

And if you want to see my previous post on the Thanksgiving Storm along with excerpts from another report, here is that link.

https://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2015/06/61715-report-can-storm-uncover-as-much.html

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I woke up this morning from a dream in which I was hunting through some good shell piles and finding some old things.  I guess my little walk yesterday and my planned walk today was on my mind.

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Yesterday I saw most of episode six of season six of the Oak Island TV show.  It provides so many positive and negative treasure hunting lessons and illustrations that I have to comment on it.  They have really picked up the pace this season.

My first impression is that the word "theory" has suddenly become very popular on that show.  It is used frequently now.    A simple word count of the transcripts could quickly confirm or deny my impression if somebody wants to do it.  If true, it indicates a new positive direction for them, in my opinion.

The advantage of "targeted" drilling based upon the seismic data was clearly demonstrated.  The hypothesis of a void of the type expected, or hoped for, was not supported in this case, but a clear answer was provided with a relatively high degree of confidence.  You won't get that with random searching.   If you have a clear hypothesis to test, you have a much better chance of coming up with a clear answer so  you can move on with the additional information.  In this case, they did not find a void where one was expected, but they effectively conducted a test and learned something from it.

Well-defined questions lead to effective tests that result in answers.

I'm encouraged that they had some real expert analysis instead of the Dr. Lori kind of thing.  It seems they are really pouring money into the project this year.

I would have liked to have a level of confidence expressed concerning the age and mining location for the lead cross.  90%, 80%, or something like that.  Perhaps I missed it.

As I've said many times before, because something might have been produced at an early date does not mean that it was lost at such an early date.  We often think in terms of today's standards in which we buy something, use it and throw it away in a very short time, but things can be used or kept for hundreds of years before they are lost or deposited.  That is especially true of treasured antiques and artifacts.

I once bought a widow's mite from an antiquities dealer as a Christmas gift for my mother.  If it was lost and somebody later found it, they would be wrong to conclude that the 30AD coin was brought to America and lost in 30AD.   An old item could be lost or deposited almost any time up until the time it was found.

I'm curious why the cross was made of lead instead of gold or some other metal considering the possible context of a large treasure hoard.  Why not something more precious?  Does the lead have a symbolic significance or purpose, or was the cross simply fashioned by someone out of scrap lead - perhaps a type of soldier art.  It seems to me that it might have been once nailed to something through the head.

There was a piece of scrap lead they found in an earlier episode, which looked quite recent to me.   Neither seemed to show much evidence of salt water corrosion.

Another thing you can take from the lead cross is what I always say about discrimination.  Lead and other items that are NOT coins or gold or silver can be very good finds.  Anyone who got that item under their coil would definitely detect it unless they discriminated it out.

Location, location, location!

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Tomorrow the surf will be up to two or three feet, but the tides will start to get a little bigger.

I'm going to try to take a walk to look for more bottles and things if I get the chance.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

3/6/18 Report - Understanding Why Big Waves Sometimes Lead To Finds and Other Times Not. Mystery Find Identified.

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

After all of the big surf the past few days, there was more accretion than erosion along the Treasure Coast.  I talked about a couple of the reasons for that yesterday.  I mentioned the amount of sand in front of the beach that was absorbing most of the wave energy before the waves hit the beach, along with the angle of the waves.

You've probably heard of the legendary Thanksgiving Storm or 1984.  I've mentioned it several times before and I posted the exciting story of one person that was there that day.  I also posted a NOAA report that explained why that storm damaged the beaches so much.  While people are wondering what happened and why the recent waves didn't do much for us, I thought it would be a good time to post some of that report again.  It really explains what happened back then and why it happened.

Here is part of that NOAA report.

...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....

Before commenting, here is the link if you want to read the entire report.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/mlb/pdfs/Nov_1984_storm.pdf 

Notice that the report says,  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.  As is often the case, the wind has been shifting the past few days.  It started from the north and one person said they saw some cuts (Saturday I think it was), but they disappeared a day later.  Often that is what happens when a front moves through: the wind shifts around as the front moves through.  As the direction changes the swells change and the sand moves one way and then another. 

Unfortunately we're going to continue getting changes in wind direction as another front moves through.  However, I'm still thinking the biggest problem is the tons of sand piled up in front of the beach. 

Knowing when and where to go isn't an exact science.  You can learn enough to improve your chances considerably, but there will still be hits and misses.  If you get it right every time, you're a lot better than I am.  I go out to check to see what is happening.  Sometimes I'm surprised and sometimes I see exactly what I expected.  If you go out after a long period of south winds and small surf, your chances of finding any old treasure coins is very slim.  As with many things, learning is a matter of probabilities.  In fact I say that skill is a matter of doing the things necessary to improve the probability of success.

I don't know if I've ever said this before, but I believe that heavy rains can add a little to erosion by agitating the top layer and cliff faces.  I have no idea how significant that might be, if at all.

I think the NOAA report on the Thanksgiving Storm is worth studying.  It tells you what caused one of the most legendary treasure beach days ever.

One factor they do not address is the longer term changes that occur over years or decades.  It seems to me that there are times when you have net erosion or accretion that occurs over a period of years.  I can remember times when that big sand bar was not in front of John Brooks beach and if you stepped off the front of the beach into the water there was a drop off.  There were pot holes right in front of the beach.  The bottom wasn't covered with a layer of sand.  That lasted for some years, but it hasn't been that way for at least a few years now.  In my opinion, that has a lot to do with why John Brooks has not been too productive in recent years.

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We have consensus on yesterday's mystery find.  Lloyd D., Joe R., William M. and Bill P. all said it is a sheet music holder.  Thanks guys. 

No other ideas offered, so I think that is it.  Below is an example from Pinterest.

The holes were for attaching the shelf and some of them had other attachments for holding the sheet music firm, which explains some of the other holes.

The interesting thing would now be to see if there is a story behind it and how it ended up where it was found.

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Happy

11/28/17 Report - Ole Timer Talk: Clint. Amazing Beach Finds of the Legendary Thanksgiving Storm of 1984 and More.

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

Today I'm going to post an email I received from Clint.  I might do a series of similar posts from ole timers who are willing to share.  I'll call it Ole Timer Talk (OTT).  There is no specific age or time period I'm looking for.  I'd say at least before the 21st century, as a minimum.  I've done a few of these in the past, but just decided to make it a regular thing if I can.

One thing that was different when I started metal detecting is that there was a lot less communication and a lot more secrecy.  There were clubs, but no one was going to tell you much unless you were their trusted treasure buddy.  It is so much easier to get information today and the metal detecting community is much more informed because of it.  Ole timers could be just as skillful and successful in the past, but they generally had to learn a lot  more on their own. Even though they were very skilled, I don't think they were generally as broadly informed.  Maybe that is just my own perception, because I was a lone wolf and thoroughly enjoyed experimenting and learning on my own, but I know I made a lot of mistakes and still regret some of them.

Times change, and that is one reason that it is good to record the experiences of the past, especially those that were never widely shared before.  Anyhow, I'm thinking I will start a series of posts like this if their are enough ole timers that are willing to share their favorite or not so favorite experiences. I don't know if there will be many or few or if they'll be often or rare, but I'll start it off today.

If you want to know what it was like, here is how one man experienced it..

Hi.

I would like to relate to your audience remembrances of hunting the treasure beaches of Treasure Coast in 1984 and 1991.

In 1984 near Thanksgiving, I left sunny mild Sebring for a day of fishing at Vero Beach…I also carried my Whites PI1000 as a alternate in case fishing was lousy.

Halfway to Vero, It became windy and cloudy. Two miles from Vero and the Palm tree fronds were almost horizontal from the wind.

I decided to heck with fishing…headed to Turtle Beach Access. Upon arriving, I was blown away by the number of people who were trying to get down to the beach but the waves were crashing into the Berm and you could see debris ( dock parts, palm trees, large wooden boat trash) just flying south in the current as the tide rose and the waves got higher. Then some guys made it into the water but were being slammed into the berm and some were hit by debris. That ended hunting for a few hours.

Later that day, people could hit the beach but not really sure what was found. I do know that the berm was 4 feet high before I left to find a motel.

Next day, I made it to the beach and the berm was 8 feet high and the beach was flat. People were searching and I found my first Spanish coin…a 1/2 reale in very good condition. I will never forget the feeling when I turned it over and saw the cross.

No real finds yet so I returned to the Motel. Police were turning away people that did not reside on Johns Island but I had the motel info and I was allowed to pass.

The third morning, I made my way to Turtle Beach access again. It was a retreating tide but winds still avg. 57 MPH. tide was way out and there had to be 100 people on the beach.

My PI1000 suddenly stopped working (later found out the coil was soaked inside). I watched people scooping up all kinds of stuff and others digging up cannon. The beach had all kinds of ship wreck artefacts laying there. The Berm was now 12 feet high and possibly 20 feet back.

I cannot remember his name but I stood by a fellow with a Seahunter XL500PI who was trying to retrieve a signal in ankle-deep water. His second scoop netted a pair of pliers from the wreck. Following up on that signal he received another from the same hole and came up with a beautiful 8 escudo coin. I remember we both exclaimed an expletive at the sight of it.

Suddenly a wretched guy carrying a machete came up to us and said something to the effect that "a guy could get hit with a machete for that"… and we both made a retreat …fast!

I was bummed out because people were finding stuff everywhere and I had NO DETECTOR. I was watching two guys dig out a small cannon and someone named "Bull Durham" came buy swinging a detector and found a gold coin in the sand pile created by the two cannon retrievers. I finally decided to go home. As I was leaving, I saw three big lumps of concretion at the base of the berm. They must have weighed 80 lbs each. About the size of a beer keg.  I decided to take one home and struggled to get it to the car. Thought if it was something maybe I would come back in a few days and get the others (yea, RIGHT!LOL).

I took the "keg" home, soaked it in Muriatic Acid for 3 days and washed the material left in the plastic trash can. I Freaked out…there were 270 hand wrought ship spikes, 4 - 4escudo gold coins, and a handful of silver 4 and 8 reales. I made a gorgeous display of the ship spikes (some were in circles and some were S-shaped). This was the ships carpenter"s keg of nails. There were pieces of American Cedar and two pieces about 6 inches long of metal Banding. I went back to Vero 4 days after the storm and …yep…the other concretions were GONE!!

Since 12 feet of beach was washed out to sea, anything left at that level was covered over in 2 weeks. The only way any remaining treasure that was on that beach and out past low-tide could now be found is for the beach to erode further than 12 feet down which would probably be near rock bottom according to some old-timers I talked to.

I moved to Lake Worth in 1987 and started learning about beach and wave patterns. Watched how people reacted to waves and patterns of swimming and horseplay. I studied wave interaction at the tideline. and then I started finding lots of lost jewelry and coins. I even was able to find $20 bills floating just under the surface of the water, which led to me finding the metal bill holder in several instances.

I searched Jupiter Beach and Lake Worth beach exclusively and learned all the patterns there. I walked along the beach one winter day searching with my Seahunter XL500 and could easily recognize the sound of gold, but while I listened, my eyes roved. I spied a 6 inch portion of a pencil thick gold chain sticking up and moving about halfway between low and high tide mark. People were walking by it, oblivious to it. I pulled it up and it had a gold Maltese Cross as a pendant. I found gold nugget rings at the base of berms just laying there exposed.

In Winter 1990-1991, I met an old retired guy at LW beach and he was there every day. We were basically the only two working that beach on most days. In that particular time frame, a longshore current must have cut through from LakeWorth through to Jupiter Beach and for a month, He and I each filled a box with hundreds of old WWII era coins and (of course) modern coins. BUT…a case in point, one day we met at LW beach and the tide was rising with wind blown winter waves. We would meet at the beach center and walk in opposite directions for the length of the beach at the waters edge where the waves washed up, turn around and walk back to the center and show each other our finds, then turn around and repeat…for at least 10 times. I found at least 15 gold rings with stones and 5 wedding bands, 2 necklaces. He found near the same but I think he found more.

That easy picking abruptly ended when the cut out further finally filled in. One thing I noticed was on a sloping beach, sometimes I would see what looked like a yellow pencil rolling up the beach with a wave and rolling down the beach following a wave. I would grab these items (3 in my time in Florida - 3-1/2 years) and they turned out to be gold Herringbone necklaces. Apparently, the nature of a herringbone lends itself to be straightened out by tiny grains of sand filling in the spaces (joints) and then the necklace can follow a wave. Also, I learned that when there is seaweed in the surf on a rough day, that as the wave crashes into the beach carrying seaweed, any necklace that gets roiled in the wave- weed combo gets caught up in the weed and winds up at the high tide line as sea wrack. Always run your detector (and eyes) over the wrack line.

As for the coins I found…I sold them in Maryland to get funds to buy a home.

I retired from the VA in 2010 in SC and drove to all my favorite beaches to detect. I was shocked to discover that I could NOT search in the water within 3000 yards of a shipwreck. Most beaches were sanded with renourishment sand. I went to LW beach and searched in the water. I could not understand why the beach out in the water was full of potholes (thousands it seemed), then I realized that with gold prices so high, people had descended on the swimming beaches and wrecked havoc out in the water.

I left and never returned. I will soon relocate to NC and be closer to Virginia Beaches and DelMarVa (Coin Beach). I then can use my MineLab CTX 3030 and even search rivers in inland areas for lost stuff at river crossings (will require Library and Historical research).

Best of Luck to all who endeavor to the refrain of…"Today's the DAY" !!!

Thanks for sharing Clint!

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The surf tomorrow will just a little bigger - something like two to four feet.  The wind will be from the east.  Beautiful beach weather.

Send me your Ole Timer Talk.  I can't guarantee I'll post every one that I get.  I'll just exercise my own judgment, which can include a lot of different factors.   Its nothing personal if I don't post a particular submission.  I just post what I feel like talking about.  Remember this is just a fun volunteer activity for me.  Maybe I won't even get another submission.
.
Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

9/20/17 Report - Storms, Hurricanes, Predictions and What To Watch For. Thanksgiving Storm of 1984. Walking Sea Shells. Big Surf Predicted.

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

If you only read to see when something has been found, you will sometimes be a little late.  But if you read this blog on a daily basis, you should seldom be caught off-guard.  I spend a lot of time watching developments and predictions and tell you when things might happen before they actually do.  Of course the predicting game isn't perfect.  The meteoroligists are often wrong.   Just look at how Irma developed.  They didn't know where it was going to go until the last few days when the predictions finally firmed up.  It isn't easy.  And it is often wrong.  Yet you should be prepared and ready as well as possible if you keep watching.

I am watching Maria very closely.  She isn't expected to make landfall in Florida, but that is not the important thing when it comes to metal detecting.  Some of the most legendary treasure detecting occurred when there was no hurricane at all.  It only takes a storm that sits off the coast and churns waves for days.

I've gone over this before, but it is a good time to go over it again.  You might be wondering what it is going to take.  We just had a hurricane go right up through the state, and still it didn't do a whole lot for the Treasure Coast. The best illustration I know of is the Thanksgiving Storm of 1984, which is legendary in Treasure Coast treasure lore.

The following data presented 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.

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 noteworthy. Here goes.

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....

...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....

There were high winds that blew for three or four days and we were having high tides at the same time.  That is in strong contrast to Irma.

Here is the link to the entire report. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/images/mlb/pdfs/Nov_1984_storm.pdf
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Yesterday Joe D.told me, Bonsteel to past Rio Mar, all sanded in still!!

Darrel S. said, 

State Park announced 33 parks are still closed. I assume the ones inland more then the coastline, unless Keys or First Coast.

Most of the beaches near St. Augustine were telling people not to walk on the beaches until further notice. I know that area really got slammed!

I have not heard from any dectorists, so cannot give any info on finds or if they are able to detect.

I would bet inland areas where trees are uprooted would be good searching. Especially, around old towns, water holes, etc.

Bet some good bottles and arrowheads could be found.

Under more normal circumstances I would have talked more about some of the other areas around the state.  One person asked about shipwrecks in the Naples area, for example.  Treasure cons are found over there.  That is about all I had time to tell him at the time.

There are certainly other areas that will be producing treasure - perhaps more than the Treasure Coast right now.  The Treasure Coast is now pretty much sanded in.

Thanks to Joe and Darrel for submitted their observations.  I hadn't been up to Bonsteel and wondered about that.

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There are now some beautiful shells on some of the beaches, including Frederick Douglas beach. Some are big and colorful. When you pick up one of those shells, please check to see if it is inhabited by a crab or some other creature. Many of the nicest will be inhabited. The inhabitant might be very difficult to see. When you pick up an inhabited shell, the creature will withdraw into the shell as deeply as they can. It might be very difficult to see. If you mistakenly take a pretty shell home believing it to be abandoned when it is not, you'll notice a strong smell when the creature dies.

Hermit Crab In Seashell.
Source: Wikipedia

That subject always reminds me of the time on Key Biscayne when I saw a hermit crab using a broken bottle neck with the bottle cap still in place as a  mobile home.  I always wish I had a photo of that.

---

Below is what I'm watching now.  MagicSeaWeed is predicting up to a 13 foot surf for Sunday.  I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be smaller, but that isn't the only factor.  We'll have to watch the wind direction and tides too.

Source: MagicSeaWeed.com

Some detecting opportunities are short-lived - lasting only a matter of hours, while others last days or more.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net