Written by the TreasureGuide for an exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| 1986 East Caribbean One Cent Coin. |
So you look at your target ID and it looks like the target is aluminum. Maybe you dig everything and want to remove may junk, or maybe you skip it, figuring it. On the Treasure Coast, most aluminum is junk, but it could be a coin, especially in some other countries.
I found a good number of aluminum coins when I was in the Caribbean, and often enough to pay for meals. The coin shown above is an East Caribbean one cent coin I dug up St. Lucia. On one occasion I was paying for an ice cream or something with coins dug in shallow water and the cashier didn't want to take them because they were discolored, and she thought they were burnt. I normally bought things there with found coins, there but this one lady wouldn't take them.There are a couple lessons there. Coins like other objects do classify according to factors such as density. And if you plan your hunt according to what you are targeting or what you expect to find, there is always the possibility of other kinds of things, and possibly some good ones, being missed.
Notice they are all between 9/29/22 and 11/28.22. That is impressive, because they are relatively recent posts and is more likely that older posts will be read more because people continue to read old posts months or years after they are posted. Posts from many years ago are still being read.
So why are so many of the most-read posts of 2022 from so late in the year?
The answer is really simple. We had a lot of good storms such as Nicole and there was a lot of detecting activity and a lot of finds made in the later part of the year, especially November.
The most read post of all was a actually the second post that I did on 11/9 when I kept adding updates such as bridge closings and other things so people kept coming back and rereading the same post.
This fall we had some good erosion and then in November Nicole came along with an unusually high surf along with high tides. Some areas opened up that hadn't produced since back in November of 2020.
There were some great finds. I had posts on Spanish shipwreck coins, including post featuring reales that were the first reales found by some detectorists. Escudos besides reales were found, as the dunes in some locations really got hit. I personally saw some areas exposed that I hadn't seen exposed in the last twenty years.
I missed hunting immediately after the 2004 hurricanes due to other responsibilities. Maybe those areas were eroded then. I expect some of them were. I also had to do some other things at the peak of Nicole and missed a good bit of that too.
Nicole wasn't like the legendary Thanksgiving Storm of 1984 (See The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 6/17/15 Report - Can A Storm Uncover As Much Treasure As A Hurricane? Question Answered.) but it certainly opened up some good hunting in some great spots. Some of those were south of most of the most hunted 1715 shipwreck beaches. I know some of the locations north of us were also heavily eroded by Nicole. Some finds were made up the coast too.
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| Wabasso After Thanksgiving Storm of 1984. |
You might want to go back in treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com to read about the Thanksgiving Storm and contrast that with Nicole. The Thanksgiving Storm was very different. It wasn't a hurricane.
Although I missed much of Nicole, I still learned from it. I didn't get to see enough early on, since I wasn't able to get out early enough, and my original expectations were a bit off. That is how you learn. Nicole hit some of the right spots but didn't open up many others. Some opened up for just a very brief time, so you just had to be there at the right time. There is no substitute for time in the field. I've said that many times before. You have to be out there. Predictions are one thing - but they need to be verified to improve your model.
There were even escudos and ingots found on the beach - some being older than those from the 1715 Fleet.
I was especially glad to see several readers find their first reales.
Overall, November of 2022 was good for metal detecting around our area. It got rid of some of the renourishment sand, so I suspect there will be new renourishment projects starting very soon.
You dan still see some of the erosion caused by Nicole if you walk along the dune face. The bottoms have filled, but some of the dunes still show where they were eroded.
Fall usually brings some improved hunting as cold fronts begin to come through, and you will usually get some good hunting through February and sometimes even into March or April. Seems like there is usually a storm or something in the Spring. After that we start getting summer conditions and have to wait for a good tropical storm to improve things.
So that was the year, and for metal detecting it wasn't a bad one, especially in November, and the blog activity shows that.
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Now we are having just a two to four foot surf.
Good hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net