Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of tbr2020.blogspot.com.
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| Source: nhc.noaa.gov |
Lots of tropical action out there now. Keep watching. Something might come our way.
For this week so far only one and two foot surf is predicted. We are having some nice tides though.
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I planned to talk about something else today, but it was like I fell into a time travel machine this morning. For some reason I decided to look at one of the beaches I often visited when I first began metal detecting. That was before I moved to the Treasure Coast.
I went to google maps and looked at one spot that came to mind, and the memories just came flooding in. I remembered many finds and the details of when they were found. The more I looked at that stretch of beach, the more details I remembered. I'm amazed that I can remember so many finds and incidents so well.
I was reminded that while we are finding treasure, we are also making memories. And looking at those beaches on Google Maps brought them back to me in amazing detail.
For example, the house shown below is jammed right up next to the water and many nights I would hunt right in front of it. The coins and jewelry would pile up in one spot there. There was a lot of silver and turqoise stuff from the 1970s. I remembered one dark night, when the door or window must have been open, and I heard a fellow inside say he must be hitting it big tonight. I was digging a lot of targets but mostly coins and silver.
Just steps to the north of there I remember finding a solid gold bracelet and on another occasion a large old Mexican coin.
I seldom hunted the next spot, but one day did, and remember picking up about a roll of Susan Anthony silver dollars in the shallow water there. I guess I remember that mostly because I always wondered what the dollar coins were doing there.
These were spots that I hunted in the first year or two of my metal detecting days. They weren't the best spots for the highest quality jewelry, but there were a lot of targets and some gold - mostly 10K - not the expensive stuff.
The next spot is where I really spent a lot of time in my first year of metal detecting. Many memories were made here. In fact I found my first ring just to the north of the theatre in the wet sand. It was a silver biker's skull ring. My parents were visiting and I was showing them what I could find with it. They were amazed when I went out and came back in a few minutes with a ring.
A couple class rings come to mind from that same spot and many more just to the north near the handball courts. Also dive watches and knives and things from where they taught diving classes. A lot of finds and memories were made there. I normall don't think of them, but looking at these beaches brought it all back.
Also a few yards to the north of there I remember some young girls telling me they just lost their sister's class ring, which they weren't supposed to have. And I remember finding it in short order. I also remember the exact spot where I found a near mint silver bullion coin, and a lot of other experiences, such as the time I showed my sister how to metal detect and was digging a line of coins along the water's edge.
As I said, there is a seemingly endless parade of memories coming back to me as I look at these beach areas.
I didn't detect Dania beach often, but one day I was metal detecting in Fort Lauderdale and a fellow came along and said he just found some gold rings down by the Dania pier. I figured I would go down there and pick up whatever he missed. And I did. I remember picking up some gold rings just to the north of the pier where it had recently eroded. That might be the only time I ever detected that spot.
I liked detecting Whiskey Creek back then. The spot shown below shows where I found my first Indian Head penny.
It was right in front of the building. I also detected where the boats park at the bend. The bank would erode there and people would lose things getting in and out of the boats and the boats would blow holes in the sand when they started out after the tide went down.
Down by the water there I found fifteen rings in a four hour period. I detected two hours and then went to pick up my wife from work and returned and detected another two hours along the water's wet water. There were a lot of those 35 mm. World War II shells there too. I gave one to a life guard.
There are too many instances to describe. That is just scratching the surface. The purpose is not to tell you what I found or anything like that, I was just surprised how the memories came flooding in from many years ago (over 30 for sure) and thought you might enjoy doing the same thing yourself some time.
Pick out an area you detected years ago and bring up the Google Maps images of the area and see if it doesn't bring back a lot of good old metal detecting memories. It did for me.
And maybe those memories will give you some new ideas or ideas to revisit.
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Tomorrow I plan to get back on the topic that I originally had planned for today.
I hope you enjoyed the research on sand and beach movement. There is a lot of good information in there.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net