Beer and Coke Please

**wilkere** · Oct 23, 2009, 11:33 AM

It’s that time of year for bottle prospect’in! Around these parts of the tidal rivers of the N.C. Coast you have about a month were the water clears up enough to actually see a few feet around on the bottom. Then around mid November the water at least for me gets too cold to jump in.
If you have a old town in the area well…. it’s time to look for bottles, fishing rods, and the big ticket items are the old 1900’s turn of the century Cokes and Pepsi’s. There are also tons of old medicines’ , elixirs and if you’re really lucky maybe a 1700-1800’s whisky flask but,…. they are usually broken.
After leaving work, I shot to my favorite spot were bottles litter the bottom. Conditions looked good as I drove the Buick Grand National down the Hwy staying off the turbo so the Sheriff doesn’t gun me down. The only thing that would ruin the dive would be fishermen or the tide ripping through the tidal river.

Running from the Sheriff!

As I got to the dock, the tide was slack. All conditions were go! Water was cool and the fishing pier was empty so, after deploying my diver down buoy I shoot down the 20 ft or so and found conditions on the bottom superb with 3 ft of vis. I starting running around piling up known crappy bottles in piles and putting in possibles in the bag. After three runs back to the breakwater to empty the bag I started to sort what I had and fortunately I had what I came for.

Pile of bottles

Sure enough after a little cleaning a mint 1900 PBR beer bottle and a bubble blown early 1900 Coca Cola were in the pile among a few other keepers.