pensacola to St george's island

[SRBloot]

Anyone know of any pre 1900 wreck in btween these two places. I live in Santa Rosa Beach and was looking for some close to shore wrecks to explore maybe detect on land for washed up items. Hope someone can help me.

Thanks,
Andy

[pcolaboy]

There are quite a few actually but the main problem is that most of these wrecks are just offshore from either state parks, national seashore, or Air Force property where metal detecting is a big NO, NO.

Over here at Pensacola Beach there is a wreck that is located roughly between Avenida 13 and Avenida 15 approximately 150 yards offshore. From some of the artifacts found on the wreck over the years it's suspected that it was a commercial schooner from the 1850 - 1870 timeframe. I'm not immediately aware of anything being found onshore near this site but the recent erosion from the storms will have certainly made this easier.

I've heard rumors of gold coins being found near Navarre Beach Pier that were deposited on the beach during the beach re-nourishment project where they essentially suck up sand off the bottom 400 yards offshore and shoot it onto the beach to build it back up.

Back in the 1960's there was a backhoe operator digging out the canals in Destin Harbor to create the Holiday Isles community and he found several thousand dollars worth of Spanish silver cobs. I've been unable to find anything about this on the internet but there is a newspaper clipping of this find in the special collections department at the Main Pensacola Library.

Your best bet would be to MD as near any of the natural inlets or passes as you can since many wrecks occurred due to navigational errors and/or heavy weather when attempting to enter these. I would imagine that detecting on either end of St. George Island, or even Dog Island would be pretty interesting - it's really just a matter of accessing those areas if you don't have a boat. Spanish fleets leaving Veracruz (and most ports they held on the Gulf ) heading to Havana almost always followed the northern shoreline due to prevailing winds and currents. They often designated certain locations as "watering places" and safe harbors all along the route in case of heavy weather or unfavorable sailing conditions.

The sands of Santa Rosa Island near Fort Pickens are literally chock-full of colonial and later wrecks but they are most certainly protected and you cannot MD anywhere on the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Then again, there are lots of other non federal or state beaches that are not declared as offlimits to MD only to find out later that state archaeologists have rather secretly declared them historical sites. And I can tell you from firsthand experience that, "Ignorance is no excuse" is what you'll hear from law enforcement if you stumble upon one of these places.

Well...that's probably more hot air than you cared for but I hope at least some of it is helpful.

Good Luck,

Pcola