Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
I hope you looked at the free ebook I recommended to you yesterday. It is pirate William Dampier's A Voyage to New Holland, Etc. in the Year 1699.
If you want a more complete understanding of the times immediately preceding the sinking of the 1715 Fleet as well as maybe some of your beach finds, I think this book will help.
The above is map that shows the Canary Islands, one of Dampier's first stops on the voyage to New Holland (Brazil) that he describes in his book.
In the days before all of our modern technologies and many sources of information, you can see how a drawing of the profile of the land and the major landmarks would help someone on a voyage.
Besides the social life, customs and products, the book also provides clues to the location of five sunk ships loaded with plate.
It is a very good read that I highly recommend to anyone interested in finding Spanish Colonial treasure.
I gave you the link to Part I yesterday. Here is the link to part II.
I enjoyed reading about the many dangers Dampier faced, from constant threat of possible mutiny to thieves and other dangers.
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I also told you yesterday about the No.36 Sedwick treasure auction which is now available for online bidding. Below is one of the lots. It is a gold bar from the Corrigan's site. It is one of five gold bars found in one day. The lot description can be below.
Gold bar ingot from Colombia, 915 grams, marked with fineness XXII (22K), circular tax stamp, and foundry stamp (B)ARBACO(A)S, ex-1715 Fleet, ex-Anderson, Craig and Richards Plate. 5-1/4" x 1-1/2" x 1/2". A complete, wide, rectangular ingot with rounded bottom and relatively flat top with a wealth of markings interspersed with natural ripples from the metal-cooling process, including fineness XXII in a box at one end and a nearly full crowned-shield tax stamp in center, between which is a large and fairly clear rectangular assayer/foundry cartouche with dotted border containing the name (B)ARBACO(A)S, the same as seen on a very similar ingot we sold in 2015 but with a different part of the cartouche visible (which we mistakenly called BARBAROSA), both ingots in fact featured in the Craig and Richards book as being among five high-karat gold bars found "in one day by divers from John Brandon's M/V Endeavor working the 1715 site commonly called 'Corrigan's' at Vero Beach," the design of their markings leading us to conclude they were cast in Colombia, in which we note there is an important gold-mining town in Nariño Department called Barbacoas, no doubt where this bar was produced. Fine gold ingots like this one from the 1715 Fleet are rather rare (much rarer than 1622 Fleet, for example). From the 1715 Fleet, with original Cobb Coin Co. photo-certificate 255 from 1983 (748 points) and official re-issued photo-certificate (1000 points), plated on page 114 and back cover of Spanish Treasure Bars (2003), by Craig and Richards, a copy of which accompanies this lot, also pedigreed to the collection of Don Anderson (the investor originally responsible for computerization of the Treasure Salvors division records, mentioned several times in The Search for the Atocha [1979], by Eugene Lyon).
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I always recommend browsing the auctions for information on past finds. You can learn a lot from the auctions even if you have no interest in bidding.
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The National Hurricane Center map is not showing anything in the Atlantic basin now. Oscar has disappeared, as has Nadine.
We are still having some nice high tides (over three feet).
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| Source: SurfGuru.com. |
Along with the high tides we are still having some decent waves.
Notice the north winds along with the more easterly swells.
When the swells come up while there is a north wind, and the water spreads over the beach front, if you watch, you will see where the water that slows on the front beach is pushed to the south by the north wind. That creates a south flow over the front beach and is bound to move at least a little sand.
If you are focused on finding Spanish treasure, the conditions are not great, but they aren't real poor either. In the terms of my old beach rating scale, I'd say we are in level 2 or "transitional" beach conditions. Good finds are possible but not common. They won't be widespread, but there will be spots that could produce, depending on the beach structure and recent history. The weather is very nice for metal detecting, so make good use of the time to at least do some scouting.
If the beaches you often visit aren't looking good, it is a good time to go look around to investigate some new areas. And who knows what you might find.
I have a ton of topics waiting for future posts.
Good hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net