10/6/11 Report - Treasure Coast Beaches Start to Improve

Written by the TreasureGuide exclusively for the treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.


Treasure Coast Beach Without Erosion This Morning.

I'll start right off with a Treasure Coast Treasure Beach Detecting Conditions upgrade this morning. I'm only upgrading to a 2. And that is a borderline two at this point. But it is an upgrade, which is more than we've seen for quite a while.

As you might know, my rating scale is a 5 point scale with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent. As I said, I would rate Treasure Coast beach conditions as a borderline two right now.

I expect conditions to continue to improve this weekend. But we'll have to wait and see how that goes.

Since I haven't been giving my ratings much lately due to the consistently poor conditions, I should repeat that my conditions rating scale gives my opinion of the chance of finding shipwreck cobs. and I should repeat once again, that my scale begins with a 1 instead of a zero because even when conditions are poor there is some minuscule chance of a cob appearing somewhere. They have been known to pop up in very surprising places, but that, of course, is rare.


Treasure Coast Beach With Some Erosion This Morning.

As my photos show, the conditions varied some from one beach to another. Some beaches showed absolutely no erosion this morning, while others were scalloped a little and some were cut a little.

In the second photo you see some small unimpressive cuts. At least it is moving in the right direction.

Below you see a beach that has cuts over a foot tall that extend for hundreds of yards.

Even on that beach, conditions are only minimally improved. The erosion is in sand that accumulated relatively recently during relatively calm conditions. And the slope is pretty mushy.

Treasure Coast Beach With More Erosion This Morning.

There were some modern coins found on this beach - some up at the foot of the cut, and some down near the water. And a little trash too.

So even though I can't say that things have changed a lot yet, at least it has started to move in the right direction in some locations.

Notice the rounded berms. The water had been up and onto the flat beach a little. Not too many shells behind the cut though.

The waves were hitting the beaches almost directly from the east. Hopefully the angles will change some this weekend.

As you can see from the illustration below, which was clipped from the surf web site that I provide a link to, the wind and waves are hitting the beach at almost exactly 90 degrees.


The surf predictions are holding nicely. They are still predicting eight foot seas in the Fort Pierce area this weekend, gradually diminishing on Monday.

Twelve foot seas are still predicted for Sebastian this weekend too.

That should be good. It might even erode the dunes.


I have a lot of other news today, but will have to cut it short.


Here is a message from Bernie C. regarding the St. Lucie Metal Detecting Club.

Our First meeting is this Saturday October 8th. It will be held at Duffy's Sports Grill 4179 NW Federal Highway, Jensen Beach at 6pm. Don't forget to bring your new and old finds to the meeting as we will have a show & tell along with item discussions. I will have business cards, permission & membership forms for everyone. We will also be talking about hunting locations, equipment, hunting rules and state laws. Duffy's is requesting a head count so let me know if you will be there. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone and having a great time.

Email Bernie at twiprod001@att.net.


And a quick correction, that I'll have more about in the near future. I got word form a couple people that Ruck's Pit is open. I'll have more on that in a day or two also.

And some more exciting news from the Fishers that I'll post soon.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/5/11 Report - Seas Start Increasing Today

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

One Typical Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.


As most of you know, we are waiting for those big seas that have been predicted. According to the predictions the seas are supposed to start increasing today. I went out this morning near low tide to take a peek to see what was happening, and as you can see from the photo above, it hadn't started yet. The seas were a little rougher, perhaps, but not much. I suspect that they'll increase as the day goes along and as the tide comes in.

You can see the sea weed on the beach. On the front beach was fresh light green sea weed. And on the back beach was old sea weed. That tells you two things. First, the beach is adding sand right now. Second, the last high tide did not get as far back on the beach as the previous high tide that left that old sea weed.

Below is a photo of another beach taken just a few minutes later than the first photo. This beach has a steeper front, but you can see the new sea weed there too.


Another Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

The waves were hitting the beach directly, which usually results in new sand being piled up rather than eroded. Hopefully the wind and wave direction will change over the next few days. As you know, size isn't everything. The direction of the waves is very important in determining the amount of erosion.


As a quick aside for those of you who are bi-coastal, Fort Myers beach is being replenished.


A large amount of cocaine washed up on the beach just south of the Fort Pierce inlet yesterday morning at Kimberly Bergalis Park.


Yesterday I mentioned Ruck's Pit and the rare fossil clams that are found there. Nelson A. wrote in and said it looks like Ruck's Pit is now closed to the public.

Here is a link.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php/topic/23533-rucks-pit-closed-for-good/


The surf prediction for Fort Pierce is holding steady. Eight foot seas are predicted for Saturday with little change through Monday, but then quickly dropping on Tuesday. That would give us almost three days of near eight foot seas. At some point during that period, we should get a shift of wind and some nice erosion - at least I hope so.

As for the Sebastian area, the surf web sites are predicting 11.5 foot seas for Saturday, dropping off a foot or so on Sunday and then jumping up to 12.5 foot seas on Monday. Now that should be high enough to do something. Tuesday things are expected to get calmer up there too.

As I write this I notice that the weather has changed from earlier this morning. The wind has picked up and I'm pretty sure that the waves have too, even though I can't see them.


Here is an article about the significance of ancient trash.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/04/world/europe/archaeology-ancient-trash/


It looks like the predicted waves are on the way.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/4/11 Report - Predictions of Big Seas Holding & Fossil Shells

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

Bob H. sent in this photo of a recent find wondering what it is?

You can see calcite crystals.

The other side of the object is shown below. In that photo you can see that it is a fossilized shell with crystal calcite formations.

I've shown some of these in the past. They can have value, especially when the crystals are gem quality.

There are web sites that sell nice examples online.

We have a very famous site in Florida, which is the only place where fossil clam shells are found with calcite crystals. It is Ruck's Pit, which is near Fort Drum.

You can pay a few dollars there and hunt fossils for yourself. I suppose it is still open.

I also showed some other shells with calcite crystals in this blog in the past. You can use the search box to find those posts if you want.


On another topic - Evidence confirms Jesuit missionary reports that some groups in Mexico were involved with cannibalism back in the early days of colonial exploration.

Here is a link to that story.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/news/2011/11/110930-cannibalism-cannibals-mexico-xiximes-human-bones-science/

The comments you that are added to stories like this are absolutely wild. Seems to be a special breed of people that love to comment on stories like this.


And here is a video on how the Texas drought has uncovered Native American artifacts in a lake bed where they have been looted.

http://www.kcentv.com/story/15596089/drought-uncovers

I've mentioned this story before, but here is the video.


Ophelia is gone, and Philippe is turning into a hurricane, but will stay far away from us.

Here is the big news. The surf web site predictions for big seas are not fading away. They are predicting eight foot seas for Fort Pierce and twelve foot seas for Sebastian.

They are saying that the seas will begin to increase tomorrow, up around five feet, and then gradually increase up to their peak on Saturday.

After that a relatively gradual decrease is predicted, so you might expect relatively high seas into the beginning of next week.

These predictions have remained relatively consistent for a few days now, which gives me some confidence that it will actually happen.

I'm not impressed by the predicted direction of the wind and waves though. I'd like to sea the wind and waves hitting from a more northerly direction.

Its getting close. Get your equipment ready for the weekend.


Happy hunting,
TreaureGuide@comcast.net

10/3/11 Report - Big Seas Coming

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

One Treasure Coast Beach Sunday.

I actually visited a number of beaches this weekend and they all looked pretty much like this one. None of them looked any good even though the water had been up pretty high. Mostly a lot of mushy sand and seaweed so far.


Below are a couple more beach photos from this weekend. As you can see they all looked pretty much the same - no good.

Thanks to Bernie C. for these two photos.

I saw some other beaches this weekend but won't post any more photos. They all look alike.


I'm surprised that no one seemed to know about the Stuart Bottling Works. At least no one sent in any information. So I'd still be glad to hear from any one that knows anything about it.


Bernie also sent some sad news - Mike Diamond, a member of the Saint Lucie metal detecting club passed away. Our condolences to the family.

Ophelia is now up by Newfoundland, and Philippe is headed out into the Atlantic, so we don't have any storms to be concerned about right now.

There are some Treasure Coast shipwreck finds up for auction on eBay now.

Below is a photo of one lot consisting of a cannon ball, musket balls, piece of pewter plate, and part of olive jar bottom.

This lot now has a bid of $200. Many detectorist overlook miscellaneous finds like this, but they can be valuable.

Many detectorists like these types of artifacts as much as they like coins.

There is a copper sheet from the Nieves site also up for auction with a beginning price of just under $40. It is about four by four inches. No bids on that one yet.

It seems the surf web sites are pretty much sticking with their predictions. They are now predicting eight foot seas for Fort Pierce by Sunday and 12.5 foot seas for Sebastian by next weekend.

The wind is now from the north and supposed to be from the northeast tomorrow and for the next few days. It looks very promising right now.

There is a lot of sand to be moved, but seas that high can definitely do it if the angles are right. Even if the angles aren't right, the water might be high enough to hit the back dunes enough to wash some things out.

This is the most promising prediction that I've seen for quite a while. Hope for good north/northeast winds.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

10/1/11 Report - Twelve Foot Seas Predicted for Sebastian!!! And Eight Foot Seas for Fort Pierce!!

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

Two Reales Sold on EBay.

This one just sold for a few cents under forty dollars.


I'll start right off with the big news today. Eight foot seas are predicted for Fort Piece and twelve foot seas for Sebastian. Now that looks promising! There is a very good chance, if that actually happens, that the water will get all the way back to the dunes at some location. That also means a lot of movement on the front beach, obviously. It has been a long time since anything like that has happened on the Treasure Coast. Irene didn't do anything nearly like that down here.

I believe it has been two or three years since the water eroded the back dunes on the Treasure Coast. I don't remember which year it was for sure, but I remember it was in October and some nice cobs, including some Potosi eight-reales were found then.

It's not uncommon for the Treasure Coast to get a good northeaster sometime in the fall, often October or November.

The first big question is whether the surf web sites got it right this time. Their prediction are often off, especially when given several days in advance. And we are talking about Friday, so that is almost a week away. The seas are supposed to start building on Tuesday. We'll see.

Philippe is still heading west. I suppose that is what is going to push all that water our way.


Kovels provides a list of about twenty different antiques and collectibles TV shows that you might find interesting.

Here is the link to that list.

http://www.kovels.com/201109288979/News-News-News/reality-tv-shows-for-collectors.html



Revelations about false reports issued by archaeologists complaining about detectorists led one city council to rescind recent legislation prohibiting detecting in public parks.

http://www.carthagepress.com/news/x1837733881/Council-nixes-archeology-ordinance

Thanks to James F. for alerting me to this story.

The city acknowledge the contributions and discoveries of detectorists who actually freely worked with the city to report discoveries and present finds on a routine basis.

The claims made by the archaeologists were exaggerated, to put it kindly, calling into question their credibility and motives.


I wish I had one of these x-ray machines.

http://www.cxrcompany.com/accuvue_xray_inspection_equipment.html


Odyssey Marine says, "... it has begun the process of specifying and assembling the tools and equipment for the salvage (of the USS Gairsoppa), and anticipates that operations will begin in the spring as soon as the weather window begins to open up in the North Atlantic."


Happy hunting,
Treasureguide@comcast.net

9/30/11 Report - 7 Foot Seas Predicted!!! & Treasure Coast Vintage Bottles

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

Vintage Soda Bottles Found Along the Banks of Treasure Coast Waterways.

Something a little different today while we're waiting for the beaches to improve.

I'll go left to right.

First a Pepsi bottle embossed Pepsi Cola. This one doesn't show where it was bottled. The bottles that are found on the Treasure Coast come from all around Florida and all around the world.

Second, a soda bottle embossed Red Rock Co. Jacksonville FL. Its nice when the bottle tells you where it came from.

Third, as you can see a vintage 7-UP bottle. No location.

Fourth,a bottle embossed Stuart Bottling Works. I don't know what the bottle contained. It looks like a soda bottle to me, but I don't know. I'll have to find out where the Stuart Bottling Works was and what they did. Maybe someone out there can help with that. I sold another one like this before.

I especially like the local bottles.

Fifth, a Coca Cola soda water bottle. On the bottom it is embossed Fort Pierce Fla. Another local bottle telling a little about our local history. I've sold one or two of these before. Vintage Coca Cola items are usually easy to sell.

These are just a few examples that have been eye-balled along the Treasure Coast.

As I've said before, items like these, while having some value of their own, give you information about people and locations of the past.

One Treasure Coast bottle was sold to someone in Australia. Another was sold to a guy that was writing a book on Florida pharmacy bottles

There are all kinds of things to be found. When you are looking for cobs keep your eyes open for other things.

I've mentioned before that my introduction to bottle hunting came after Hurricane Andrew. I was detecting for coins and found some old bottles washing up on the beach. I found some bags and started picking up the bottles, which turned out to be worth more than the old coins I found that day.

I think about starting a site just to display various types of Treasure Coast finds but never got around to it.


Dropping lake levels in Texas exposed native American archaeological sites. Many looters have been arrested.

http://www.kwtx.com/news/headlines/Dropping_Lake_Levels_Expose_Ancient_Artifacts_And_Looters_Have_Noticed_130746858.html?ref=858

I'm not aware of Native Americans using concrete thousands of years ago. If looters were digging under concrete, it would seem that the site had already been disturbed, so any disturbance done by the so-called looters would be secondary at best.


Here is a nice article about recent archaeological discoveries in the historic Hudson River Valley.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Dig-under-way-at-historic-Saratoga-battlefield-2188054.php


As you know, both gold and silver prices have dropped significantly lately. Gold has gone from around $1900 to around $1600, and silver from around $40 an ounce to around $30. It's any body's guess where they'll go next.

After a big drop and bounce, OMEX stock seems to be dropping too.


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

Philippe seems headed west. It might be coming our way.

And the surf web sites are now predicting 7.5 foot seas for next Thursday. That is the big news today. Seas that high could really improve conditions for us. As you probably know, it depends upon other factors as well, but seas that high give us a good chance for something good to finally happen.

Today the wind is out of the north/northwest. Seas are relatively calm, and the surf web sites have decreased the level of the seas expected this weekend.

We do finally have something hopeful to look forward to.


Happy Hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

9/29/11 Report - Phillipe, Where Is He Going?

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

Phillipe Heading West.


A 12 year old boy put a note in a bottle in 1961 and set it out to sea. The bottle and message was found this year after hurricane Irene by two ladies who are now trying to locate Jeffrey Vickers who wrote that note.

Here is the link to that story.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/provincetown/features/x1214497998/Tropical-storm-delivers-message-in-a-bottle#axzz1ZLbRFvlC


There are always some things in the world of collecting that become popular and bring high prices for a time before eventually losing favor. Kovels Komments reports that right now antique firearms are particularly popular and are bringing high prices.


3-D laser scanning of artifacts is now being used to develop 3-D computer images that can be used in museum displays and to further study the artifact.

Here is a link to an article about using 3-D laser scanning on artifacts from George Washington's estate.

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/092011/09272011/654031


A few days ago I provided a sketch of a theoretical beach and began a series of posts on treasure beach dynamics.

I think everybody accepts the idea that heavy items over time sink on a beach. It isn't all that simple though. Obviously for an item to sink, movement is necessary. But not only does the sinking item move, the materials immediately under the item must move. A coin or ring can not sink through sand without the sand moving enough to permit the ring to move down through it. Sand is not solid or stationary like concrete. That might sound obvious enough, but it seems to be overlooked sometimes.

How fast and how persistently an item sinks on a beach will be determined by a number of factors. The object's density, size and shape, and composition will all affect how fast or how much an item sinks. Also, the materials that the item is in will determine how fast it will sink.

Sometimes the sand is loosely packed and sometimes densely packed. Sometimes the sand is fine grain and sometimes course. Sometimes there are layers of other materials such as shells, rocks, or clay. Some sand is saturated with water. That all makes a difference in how an item will sink.

Generally speaking gold and similarly dense objects such as lead will be found at deeper levels. However dense materials in the shape of a thin sheet will not sink very much. A lead musket ball will more often be found at deeper levels than a thin lead sheet, for example. The sheet will present more surface area, and moving water will move it more. A thin plain gold band presents little surface area to the sand and also to the force of moving water.

The shape of a coin when laying on the surface of well packed sand will tend to hug the sand and will not present much surface area to water moving over it, and so will not tend to move much unless there is a good bit of force applied by the water. Of course the coin it will move if the surface that is is resting on is being moved.

Often the sand is moved away, the object settles on the new lower base, and then new sand covers the object again. That is why it helps to know where different layers are.

One of the missing pieces to the puzzle for me is that I don't know where the beach was back in the 18th century. I suspect that it was signicantly different than it is now.

Back to the sinking objects. I do know how far some beaches were eroded back after the 2004 storms. One beach that I'll use as an example was eroded down several feet all the way back to the walkover.

Now here is an important point. Everything in that area, all of the sand and other objects in that area was gone. Material had to wash in and up to fill that vaated area again. On other beaches it could possibly be that some of the fill material washed down from the dunes, but on my sample beach, that didn't happen. Therefore, I know that cobs and other objects wash up. On some beaches there is simply no other way for those objects to end up in previously vacated areas. The conclusion is that coins wash in as well as out, and up in addition to sinking.

That seems like a good place to stop for now.


Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.

No change in the long standing poor conditions yet.

As you can see from the illustration at the top of the post today, Philippe looks like he might head west.

Today and tomorrow we'll have relatively calm seas, but this weekend and maybe for a few days after that it looks like the seas will increase, maybe up to about four feet. That is what the surf web sites are predicting now.

That could help a little.


Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net