9/23/19 Report - From the Treasure Coast to the Palm Beaches - Conditions and Finds. Triton Submarines Visit the Titanic.

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

Palm Beach

Photo by Joe D.

Palm Beach.

Photo by Joe D.

The South Hutchinson Island beaches were not looking good this morning.  In fact those beaches haven't changed much at all in the last few weeks even though they were hit by Dorian and a lot of high surf.  The swells have continued to hit the beach directly at a ninety degree angle for weeks now.  Its amazing how little the beaches have changed during that length of time.

John Brooks was unchanged this morning, except for some very shallow dips, which could also be found on other beaches.

Walton Rocks Beach Monday Morning.

Walton Rocks looked very much like the other beaches I saw.  The beach was more convex than is apparent in this photo, but there was a very sparse coin line just above the water line.  I'm pretty sure those coins and other items were washed up out of the water, but I'm not completely sure.  The water had been up to the vegetation.

A bit farther south ( I don't know the name of the beach ) I found the cut shown below.

Eroded Bank in Renourishment Sand.

Even though there is a cut here, the cut is in renourishment sand and the same beach was cut down much lower a year or so ago.

I found an MRE this morning.

MRE on Beach This Morning.

Overall, beach conditions remain poor.

Before long I'm sure they'll use Dorian or any other excuse to spend some FEMA money to dump more sand on the beaches.

DJ sent a link to the coastal management plan for our region.

Here it is.

https://connect.xfinity.com/appsuite/#!!&app=io.ox/mail/detail&folder=default0/INBOX&id=176559

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Triton Submarines of Sebastian recently made the first manned dive in fourteen years to the Titanic to document changes to the wreck.

Here is that link.

https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/indian-river-county/2019/08/21/triton-submarine-sebastian-documents-titanic-wreckage/2071692001/

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There are three storms in the Atlantic, but it looks like they'll stay away from Florida.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/12/14 Report - German Spy Cache, Florida in WW II and Civilian Watch Towers,

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

WW II Observation Tower at Ormond By the Sea.
Source: http://vintagedaytona.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/ww2-submarine-watch-tower/

You might not realize the impact of World War II on Florida.  If you live along the Treasure Coast you are probably aware of the amphibious training base that operated along the beach between Vero and Stuart. 

It wasn't uncommon in the past to dig up relics from WW II on our Treasure Coast beaches.   WW II dog tags, shell casing and bullets, and canteens and other WW II artifacts have been discovered on the beaches of the Treasure Coast.

My 2/17/12 post showed some dug Browning shell casings found on the beach, and I told how to identify them.  I'm sure a few more are still out there on the beaches and will be uncovered by future storms.

Here is that link.

http://treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com/2012/02/21712-report-bullet-find-researching.html


I don't think most people today realize how close the war came to Florida.  The web site from the following link says, The Germans sank 24 ships in Florida waters during the war, eight of them off Palm Beach County between February and May of 1942. Half of those went down near Jupiter Inlet.

http://www.pbchistoryonline.org/page/the-enemy-presence-german-u-boats

I'm sure that there are occasional items from WW II wrecks that are still encountered at times along the Treasure Coast beaches.

It is known that German spies from one submarine landed on a Florida East Coast beach, buried explosives, went to the grocery store and generally surveyed the area while planning sabotage.

The one known case was at Ponte Vedra.  The article obtained by using the following link says,

Beachgoers crowd Ponte Vedra Beach now, many unaware of the World War II German spies who landed here 70 years ago.

"No one spotted them," said Taryn Rodriguez-Boedee of the Beaches Historical Society. 
 
She said in June 1942, a German submarine closed in on Ponte Vedra and four German spies came to shore.

"They sunbathed. Went swimming. They were in the swimming trunks," Rodriguez-Boedee said.

They buried boxes full of explosives on the beach planning to come back for them.

http://beaches.firstcoastnews.com/news/news/80070-german-spies-landed-ponte-vedra-beach-70-years-ago

Two of the four German spies were executed, and the two who revealed the plot to sabotage America, were returned to Germany.  The FBI dug up the explosives.

Those are the ones we know about.

There were 15,200 watch towers along the US coastline where civilians spotters monitored the coast for enemy planes and ships.  There was a watchtower about every six miles.   The photo above shows one of the few remaining watch towers at Ormond By the Sea.

Here is a link for more about that.

http://vintagedaytona.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/ww2-submarine-watch-tower/

There are still a few remaining signs of a couple of those towers on South Hutchinson Island.  One was just below the condos north of Douglass Beach. 

There is also what appears to be a WW II dump just back of the beach a few miles south of that.

As recently as 2013 the Army Corps was trying to find and remove any remaining scullies, which were placed along North and South Hutchinson island for WW II training exercises.  Scullies are those big crossed iron beam things that look something like huge jacks, if you remember that item that girls used to play with. 

I remember one big project to do that back in the eighties or nineties when they removed many of them from the shallow water north of the Seal Museum.

With the sandy beaches and poor conditions that exist on the Treasure Coast now it is not likely that you'll find much WW II stuff, but we lose a lot of sand some time in the future things like that might pop up again.

Right now on the Treasure Coast the tides are fairly flat, the surf is around two or three feet, and the wind is now more out of the East.

Can't find the find picture that I was going to post.  Maybe tomorrow.

Don't forget the blog poll.


I think I'll end there today.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net