My Favorite River Bottle

C

Charles,Oak Island

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Have been wanting to see if I could get this picture posting thing to work. Photo of the Spanish Wine bottle (by Marx's book 1740-1770)was found a few yards from Bonnet's Creek (Named for the Pirate Stede Bonnet in 20 ft of water) near the end of Rhett St (named for Col William Rhett who apprehended Bonnet). It is by no means my best bottle but it is my favorite. Bonnet careened his vessel the Royal James in Sept. 1718 near Bonnets Creek and ended up being captured bt Rhett.? There are stories of hidden treasure near the old jail, but? local government frounds on digging up city property.
The old jug was sitting up as it is in the photo under a city pier, where it had sat undisturbed for over 100 years until this ole guy found it in 10 ft of water.
The civil war projectile was recovered in the same are near the waters edge. The clay pipe (by Marx's book again 1820-1870) was found in the same general area in about 8 ft of water.
 

Excellent finds, Charlles.
Looking forward to seeing more.
Good luck,
BRD
 

Nice bee-hive jug! I don't see many of those uncovered anymore. The clay pipes are hard to find with an intact bowl + some stem. I only found three, and probably a few thousand stem pieces. Any heel or bowl markings? Your broken bottle is much older than any bottle I ever dug up, so I can see it being your favorite. W.T.G.
Dave.
 

Thanks guys,
Dave the pipe only has a T that I can find. The Bee hive had a couple oysters and a few barnicales on it. The usual soaking in Muratic Acid and water cleaned it. it had a couple of 3 oz sinkers around it from folks fishing off the city pier.? There have been a number of pipes pulled from the river at this location. Had another one last time I dove the river but it slipped out of my bag during the dive.
 

I guess you would find complete pipes diving underwater. I never tried diving yet. Do you just fan and eyeball, or do you bring a detector down there, or both? I can only imagine what's underwater.
 

All the pipes we find are throw a ways (smoked down to short stems and then discarded). The bottom make up is a mix of mud/sand. You see something sticking up, a corner or top (visibility is about 2ft on a real good day) and you pull/pry it out to check it. I have 3 U/W detectors but have not tried one yet. This area was used to repair fishing boats and there are so many nails, nuts, bolts, steel cable, valves, etc that it would drive you nuts.Also the area has been used from about 1770 through the present by the military. During WWII they fired weapons out into the water there are thousands of empty 30 cal casings on the bottom. Another big probablem is (*@%!&$* tourst) boats fishing in the area they will run over you pull up your dive flag and drop a hook on your head. Diving is mostly done from in this area Sept to late Nov.
 

good look ne way . I can never get the change to underwater-dig.
 

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