Treasure

I could hardly believe it, but I didn't have a single crawl today on my patrol of South and South Middle beaches. Kate had work to do, but I got off easy, was home by 9am, and spent the rest of the day cleaning the house and the the turtle shed.  So I don't have any interesting turtle news to share.  I do however, have tales of treasure!

I'm sure Kate has mentioned that we consider any interesting found object to be "treasure", even though most of it is completely worthless.  The treasure we've been collecting since the first days include: old bottles, crab pot buoys, and animal bones.  Oddly enough, we don't collect many sea shells, we've tired of them I suppose.

As to bottles, we are learning that many of the interesting ones we have are from the years between 1932 and 1964.  They are easy to identify, because they all have the wording "Federal Law Prohibits Sale or Reuse of This Bottle" stamped on them, which was required on liquor bottles post prohibition.  They come in many shapes and colors, and most have neat designs and raised lettering embossed in the glass.

Crab pot buoys are a plenty all over the island, and new ones constantly wash up on the beach.  We've been saving the brightly colored ones, that aren't completely overgrown with barnacles.  Bright pink, orange, and yellow are popular.  We even have two that are blue and yellow stripped, and have matching numbers, which identify them as being from the same fisherman.

Skulls, and other bones are everywhere.  The most common we find are hog.  These we save the jaws of, in order to extract the tusks and larger teeth.  Our boss Mark gives out hog necklaces each season for various achievements among turtle folk, so we save the teeth for him.  We also have a deer skull, a pelican head and some kind of dog skull (we think).  We're left our two loggerhead strandings on the beach and are checking on them periodically, waiting patently for them to deteriorate enough to take those skulls as well.

So that's the regular treasure.  Then we find all kinds of single items.  Kate found a complete patio chair today (most only have 3 legs).  I found a life jacket and some fenders to use on the canoe (if we ever get it running).

And then there is very special treasure.  Most of which was found today, or yesterday, and the reason I had the idea to write on this topic.

Today, Kate found a waterproof map on the beach.  It's actually for our island, and the surrounding waters.  Since it's a map, and we consider it treasure, it's officially a treasure map!

Yesterday, as I was patrolling the north end when I found a little yellow rubber duckie.  I thought it was cute, picked it up, and threw it in my bucket.  I thought at least I could use it as a toy for Beau-Retard the dog (we collect tennis balls and baseballs for him).  I continued down the beach, and then to my surprise, another yellow rubber duckie.  Believe it or not, this went on for my entire patrol.  I collected over 20 little rubber duckies, each individually numbered on its head.  Kate found a few on her patrol at the south end.  Today I even saw more, but didn't collect them.  I thought this was extremely strange, and I raced home to research what they could be.  I was hoping it was some drift study, in order to determine if the oil spill would end up here.  To my great disappointment, I learned that the Rotary Club, and many other groups, have Rubber Duckie Derbys to raise money.  People buy a duck, for $5 or $10, then thousands of ducks are dumped into a creek or river to race down.  Prizes are awarded for the first finishers.  I guess they don't bother to retrieve all the ducks, and they end up in the ocean.

All this time I was thinking it was some kind of scientific research going on.  I was upset that it was just trash, but then today, I was rewarded with the perfect beach treasure, a message in a bottle!  I passed the bottle on the ATV and thought, "No way did that have a letter inside".  I turned around, picked it up, and sure enough it did.  I couldn't believe what I'd found.  I opened it up and read the rolled up letter.  It was from a high school student in Florida.  Her class was actually doing a study on ocean currents, and had released bottles into the ocean.  It contained instructions on contacting them to report where their bottle ended up.  I sent the email today, and am excited to learn when and where it was set adrift.

Everyday the ocean brings us more trash treasure, and we'll report on any significant finds.  The best treasure the ocean brings though, is still the turtles.