2/5/22 Report - Beautiful Beach Weather. Researching a Whistle Find. A Botswans Whistle from The Santa Margarita.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

John Brooks Beach Friday Afternoon.

There were many people at the beach Friday afternoon.  Many of those were from out of state.  But everybody seemed to be enjoying the beautiful weather.  It has been a long time since I saw so many people at John Brooks, although I seldom go to the beach in the afternoon, so I usually miss the crowds.

John Brooks Friday Afternoon.

The tide was lower than I've seen for a while too, but the slope was pretty mushy.

Below is a quick video clip that shows the surf.

Here is something I dug up yesterday.  

Recently Dug Item.

At first I thought it was just a brass fitting of some type, but if you look at the picture closely, you'll notice something that I noticed after doing a little cleaning.  It is a whistle.  I didn't know what kind of whistle though.  

At first I thought it was just a little piece of tubing of some sort and was ready to toss it when I decided to take a better look and noticed that it was actually a whistle.  I thought it might be a dog whistle, or possibly a maritime whistle or something so the research began.  I was glad I decided to do the research, because even though the whistle turned out to be nothing exciting, I learned about botswans whistles, including one found on the site of a Spanish treasure galleon.

Here is a good link to a site about botswans whistles.

117 Boatswain Whistles | The Whistle Gallery

From that site you will learn how to recognize a botswans whistle.  Here is an excerpt.

Source: The Whistle Gallery.

So, the one I found is probably a dog whistle.  I also saw similar whistles referred to as safety whistles.

I was especially interested in learning about older whistles now, so I kept looking, and finally discovered an article about a whistle from the site of the Santa Margarita. 

Botswans Whistle From the Santa Margarita.
Source: See WLRN link below.

Here is a brief excerpt from that site.

The pipe spent more than 350 years underwater off the Marquesas Keys, west of Key West. And it's spent the last couple decades on display at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.

The museum is working on a new project for the 400th anniversary of the sinking of seven ships in the fleet that Santa Margarita was part of. Instead of focusing on just the treasure the ships carried, they'll look at the lives of the people who were on board when they that sank in a hurricane, right after leaving Havana.

"I thought, 'Wow, it might be kind of neat to look at that whistle and explore the role of the boatswain," said Malcom, director of archaeology at the museum. "But also, 'What the heck does that whistle sound like?' We've had it on display forever and we've never really blown it."

Here is the link if you want to learn more about that.

A Pipe From The Past: Key West Museum Captures Sound Not Heard In Four Centuries | WLRN

Even an insignificant find can lead you to some good information.

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Source: MagicSeaWeed.com.

The surf will be around four to six feet today.  The tides are not huge, but we're getting a fairly nice low tide.  

There are some spots that are better than others, of course.  There are some aeras that have been eroding slowly, but I've heard of nothing that is really producing a lot of old stuff.  Still, it could be worth checking around.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net