9/8/19 Report - After Dorian. Locked Gates and Open Borders: Thoughts. Beach Conditions. Shark Tooth Find.

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

Locked Gate.

I received this email from a veteran and regular reader of this blog.

I have really been troubled with the beach access situation in Indian River County. I am tired of walking around in the evening like I am some kind of criminal. As a war vet I love being back in America and love going to the beach. Especially at night. My family, friends and I love to fish at night, walk the sunsets or clear star nights and turtle walk. Why then are we denied access to our beaches for over 20 miles in IR County.

I found the DEP site I linked below and reported every access point as an issue due to gates being closed. They should only be closed in a dire emergency. The beach is not the county's, it belongs to the State.

As such, it is held in the public trust under the Public Trust Doctrine. I believe you will find that IR County is in violation of State law and the trust, and I urge all your readers to mark every spot (ambersands, turtle etc.) and report it.

Sometimes the government does things because they can and no one objects. This does not mean it's right. It's time to tell our public servants this is our land and we demand the gates be left open.

I am pro law enforcement and welcome their patrols but they should not be used to guard locked gates to keep law abiding citizens away.

Thanks for your daily work

DZ

Thanks DZ.  I've received emails from others that are upset about the beach closures as well.

I find it very curious that our beach accesses are more heavily guarded than our national border.  Why should it be easier for a terrorist to walk across the US/Mexico border than for a US veteran to walk onto an Indian River County beach?

GB had something to say about that yesterday.  See that post.

If danger is the issue, they'll have to construct safety fences around the ocean like those used for home swimming pools.  Lets face it.  Life involves risk and danger.

Get ready for beach closures this summer too.  Just the mention of a storm will open up federal dollars for beach renourishment.

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From Russ P.

I made my way to the Treasure Coast early Wednesday morning.  As has been well reported, there were unmanned patrol cars in front of the closed Turtle Trail and Seagrape accesses.  

I arrived to TT at 7am.  There were no cars parked outside the access.  I moved on to Seagrape and there was a single private car parked outside the access, so I decided to quickly check it out.  As I was walking to the access, I met the sole detectorist walking back to his car, reporting "no luck".  I took a quick look and although the water had hit the dune wall, there was a fairly steep slope with some mushy sand, so overall not much improvement.  There was not a single person on the beach at that time.  I did not detect.

Later, I met a detectorist who told me that, the day before, he had been escorted from Turtle Trail by police until they saw him cross the bridge in his car.  He repeated the story that the officers' approach is to keep other detectorists off the beach so they have no competition while they detect.

I wonder if there is any truth to that rumor.  On one hand, I find it unlikely.  However, judging from what I saw at Seagrape that morning, there was absolutely no reason for the access to be closed.  It was in good condition with a safe beach and beautiful surf.  Frustrating.

Thanks Russ.  All reports that I received so far indicate beach conditions at the closed beaches were not much improved by Dorian.

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From Jeff C.

       I detected the beach just south of the Vero Disney resort on Thursday. Like most of your other readers, not much found except for lots of can slaw! Conditions were not very good. A flat beach and lots of mushy sand. But the reason I’m writing you is as I was searching a nice shell line , I remembered your posts about looking for fossils amongst the shells . Within 2 minutes of that thought a sharks tooth was right in front of my coil.. a few minutes later what looks like possibility a horse tooth.. thanks for broadening my searching mentality.. I was genuinely excited to find something that old.    

Shark Tooth and Barnacle(?)

Finds and photo by Jeff C.

The second item looks like a barnacle to me.

I forget if I mentioned seeing a fossil in the shell line after Dorian.

By all accounts it seems like the closed beaches were no better than the other easily accessible. beaches.

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From Curt B.

In your 11/7/2010 blog you posted pics of a small silver object. I used to do a lot of E-waste scrapping and that little object looks a lot like a contact from an industrial breaker. The contacts are soldered on to a copper arm. The contacts are 40% silver. In the industrial breakers they vary in size but that looks like a lot of ones I have scrapped out over the years. Hope that helps in identifying it.

Thanks Curt.  I would never come up with that.

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One of the interesting things about Dorian and how the surf quickly dropped off, is that the low surf after the storm would not fill the beaches in again right away - that is if there was much erosion to be filled in.

I wasn't worried about getting out quick.  If there were any good spots, especially those that aren't detected as much, you could get out and detect those beaches days later.

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I should point out that John Brooks and Frederick Douglass beaches were closed slso while other nearby beaches were open.  John Brooks and Frederick Douglass weren't closed as long as Seagrape and Turtle Trail though.

Very few finds have been reported so far.

There are still some things in the Atlantic to watch.

Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

2/2/16 Report - Miscellaneous Finds. Shark Tooth. Button. Flat Indian River.

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

Foggy Morning on Flat Indian River This Morning.

This morning the river was beautiful.  It was flat, clear and blue.  There was some fog too, which made it even nicer.

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Here are some nice recent finds by Joe Dirt.  Above is a nice great white shark tooth and below some miscellaneous pieces including a couple of spikes.

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A few days ago I showed some coins found by Willim M.  They were inland finds.  Here are more nice finds from the same hunt.

Finds and photos by William M.

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Congratulations guys! And thanks for sharing.

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We'll have a few more days of south winds and small surf.

That's it for today.  I had a very busy day.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

12/16/13 Report - Florida Fossils and Mountain Treks

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

Peace River Fossil Finds.
Finds and photos by Bill M.

I talk about all kinds of treasures in this blog, but mostly what can be found on the Treasure Coast or around Florida.  Sometimes, like yesterday, I'll talk about experiences from elsewhere.  I believe that the more experiences you have, the better off you will be.  You can usually learn something from hunting different things or different places that you can apply to somewhere else.

While waiting for beach conditions to improve, Bill M. took a trip to the Peace River and found the fossils you see here.

Nice finds Bill!  That was a good day.

I was thinking just the other day that I hadn't mentioned fossils for quite some time.

You can occasionally find fossils on a number of the Treasure Coast Beaches.  I've seen a few in the River too.  In fact my first Treasure Coast fossil was a Great White tooth that I saw beside the river.

The first fossil I found, I didn't know what it was at the time, but it came up in a scoop of sand when I was digging a target in the water in S. Florida.  I didn't know what it was at the time but held onto it until I eventually found out exactly what it was.

Don't be too quick to throw things away when you don't now what they are.

A Closer View of One of Bill's Finds.

Here is a nice shark tooth that Bill found.

You can see many others in the above photo.

Below is a photo of Bill's equipment.

You can get a permit to hunt fossils from the State of Florida.

I once posted information on how to do that.  The price is nominal.

Fossil hunting can be a lot of fun.  If you think Spanish coins are old, that is nothing compared to fossils, which can be millions of years old.

A sifter can be a handy for a lot of things.  They aren't expensive or difficult to construct.

Thanks for sharing Bill!


Yesterday I mentioned Eldorado Canyon and an old hotel site up the trail.

Well, I'm not the only one that visited that hotel site.

I received an email from Rick A. who said the following.

When I first started reading the story, I thought to myself "this sounds like Eldorado Canyon "


I have not only been there , I have metal detected that hotel site, and although I didn't find much, I did find a spoon from the old hotel. I gave it to the park ranger as part of its history... Sometimes I wonder if we have crossed paths, as I lived in Colorado for 30 years and moved to Florida 4 years ago. Have you ever heard of the old Treasure hunting club in Denver called " Eureka " ? I was once a board member there... 

Small world!

Good to hear from someone else that has made the trek up that trail to the old hotel site.  I guess you didn't get stymied by the fake snake.

Thanks for sharing Rick.



While on the topic of scenic places, snakes and the like, Aquanaut John shared his encounter.  Here is what he had to say.

As far as the snake story goes, I have one similar, albeit with a real encounter. When I was 14 years young, my Grandfather took me out to West Virginia to experience the wonders of his own childhood. One of the these was a climb up Seneca Rocks (pictured). He had told me he did it when he was about my age and was sure I'd enjoy the climb, view the river below with the large schools of huge trout in it's crystal clear waters, and the extraordinary view at the top. While he went fishing I went climbing. My serious trout fishing lessons on native trout streams would come later.

Seneca Rocks.
Submitted by Aquanaut.

About halfway up, I stopped to look around and sure enough I could see the trout, although they looked pretty small from up that high. I resumed my climb anxious to see what the view would be from the top! Not to be! About another 100 feet up, I reached for a handhold above me only to hear a familiar rattle. I jerked my hand back down only to hear a chorus of rattles, RATTLESNAKES! Lots of them! All the snakes had been made aware of my presence! The big trouble was that I didn't know where they ALL were. I had only one recourse, head back down the way I came up.

Although I didn't make it all the way to the top, I was still pretty excited about the adventure. I think my Grandfather was a little disappointed for me, but it got better when we began the fishing and camping part together!


There is another beautiful place visit and to get out and share the sights and sounds of nature.


We do have rattlesnakes here on the Treasure Coast too, so be careful when you are hunting inland.  And coral snakes, which I see every once in a while.

It looks like beach detecting conditions will remain poor for a while now.  I don't see anything in the forecast that will cause an improvement in conditions this week.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net