I got cold feet

     How to stay warm...
     Not an issue I thought I would have to deal with when I moved to Florida in 2004 but the fact is, it can get quite cold here in the winter and when your plan for the day is to stand waist deep in river water for 6 hours, keeping warm becomes a lot more important.
     Within my first few visits to the Peace River in autumn 2012 it became apparent that I would not survive the winter in a wet suit (no matter how thick) and tennis shoes with wool socks.
     Chemical handwarmers put out limited warmth in the open air so I quickly started wrapping them inside a fleece top that was then placed inside a plastic trash bag thus creating a little hothouse environment for my feet every time I had to get out to warm up.  But I hated getting out of the water!  It cut into my digging time and I had to remove all the wet gear on my feet, dry them, warm them, then pull everything back on every time I needed to get warm.

     I went to Gander Mountain, a store I actively despise, to purchase a butane hand warmer.  Three different sales associates acted like I was trying to buy crack cocaine off the shelf, avoiding eye contact and saying things like, "We've never had anything like THAT here."  Really?!  

     A local friend sent me a link on FaceBook for the Caddis System waders made for women.  I initially balked at the $130 price tag but I had a little Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket and it was very chilly out so I decided to splurge.  OF COURSE the only place in town I could buy them was Gander Mountain but I drove to the store with a bad cold, dressed in sweats, and bought a set.  The salesman asked what size I wanted and I said "large" because I am 5'9" and it seems like most adult clothing in sporting goods stores is sized for tweens but to the credit of the Caddis System company, the "large" was actually LARGE and I had to drive right back and trade them for a "medium".

     It's no accident that "Caddis" sounds somewhat like "Caddie" coz these waders are super sweet!  While everyone around me is blue-lipped and shivering, I am toasty warm, cradled in dry wool socks, heavy fleece leggings and a warm shirt.  My arms get a little wet, since I am digging in a river but that's manageable.

     By the time it got warm enough to switch back to a wet suit, I had ordered a thick pair of dive boots off of Amazon and when the forecast is chilly, I throw everything in the back of my truck and sort it out when I get there.

The tooth becomes a monkey on my back

     I was so excited to find the mako teeth on my first visit to the Peace River and I immediately planned to return the following week.  I hadn't fully developed my river habit yet so at the time, going back only 7 days later seemed excessive.  I sent the photo of the makos to the club president and he passed them around.  A club member named Dave arranged to meet me at the Peace River Campground boat ramp and check out this spot I had stumbled upon.
     I had gotten so cold on my first visit that I knew I had to come up with a system for staying warm.

     I have long referred to my 14' fishing kayak as "the barge" so now I put it to good use, loading it with all manner of sweat shirts, leggings, snacks and drinks, hand warmers, etc.  I also took an old pair of wool socks to wear with my tennis shoes in the water.
     When Dave saw my setup, he was the first of many to tease me about how much crap I lugged along every time but for me, comfort is key.  I have trouble maintaining body heat and when I get too cold, the show's over.
     We started paddling and boy, was I fired up!  But what a LONG paddle, ugh!  For someone who spends a fair amount of time in a kayak, I truly dislike paddling which seems ridiculous.  I have even paddled the 7 miles from Pine Island to Cayo Costa State Park and the return trip a few days later, but I bitched the entire time.
     Finally we reached the location where I found the makos and I got my first lesson in how difficult it can be to relocate your honey hole.  I had noted landmarks but with the water level going down every day, it already looked very different from the previous week.
     Dave and I started digging...and digging...and digging.  I had to keep getting out to get the feeling back in my feet and, much to my embarrassed horror, we found nothing; not so unusual for an amateur like me, but almost unheard of for a pro like Dave.  I kept apologizing for dragging him out there.
     Mid afternoon he called it and went back to his kayak to load up.  I slowly worked my way back to the shore, scooping a shovel of gravel here and there.  A few feet before I stepped out of the water, I looked in my screen and saw an amazing thing.

     I only found one thing that day but it was a good thing to find: a large, shiny meg with good serrations.  Marring its perfection is a shovel ding on one side but it's hard to say if it was my shovel or not.  This one tooth may have been scooped up any number of times and fallen back off the shovel into the water before I finally captured it; it was certainly close to the surface of the gravel.

     I held that tooth in my hand on the long drive home and dreamed about it all night.

     I was addicted.

Peace at last

     Thanksgiving weekend 2012 marked my first visit to Florida's Peace River.  Lots of preparation went into the venture and Tanya agreed to come along.  The river water level had still been too high before Thanksgiving and I hadn't had a chance to set up a trip with the old guys but since Tanya and I had that weekend free, I scoured the internet, made some calls, and arranged for us to camp at Arcadia's Peace River Campground in the questionably named "Wilderness Area."
     The first fossil screens I made from directions on the internet were sturdy enough but waaay to small as evidenced by the front screen in the photo.

     Only an infant could successfully fossil with such a tiny screen.  The other 2 screens in the photo are later versions that have worked very well for me but immediately after the "tiny screen incident," I made a monster screen that I couldn't even lift once it was full of gravel.  My dad always told us to "stop trying to reinvent the wheel" when we refused to take is advice and go about a project our own way.  Moral of the story?  Just follow the proportions on the internet.  For our probes (used for poking into the sand in the hopes of finding gravel and fossils) I bought a couple of golf clubs at a thrift store and cut the heads off.

      In addition to the screens, we loaded our kayaks, garden shovels, and wet suits (I found a good one at a thrift store for $12).  Even though I live in Florida, it can get cold in the winter and spending several hours half submerged in cold river water can mess with your core temperature.  I didn't yet own dive boots so I used old sneakers.  I was soon to learn: NOT effective.

     We drove 3 hours to Arcadia, set up our camp in the primitive "wilderness area," then set off on our fossiling adventure.  It's a good idea to paddle upstream in the morning so that when your exhausted from digging all day, the paddle home is easier.  We paddled and paddled and paddled and stopped every so often to probe for gravel or dig a little.  Not a single fossil.  Ugh!  The hours were passing and I felt frustrated.

     Two different canoes powered by trolling motors cruised past us and I boldly studied the occupants.  

The first canoe had a man and a woman, both wearing wet suits and hardware pouches tied around their waists.  They waved and we exchanged morning greetings.  The second canoe held 2 women.  They, also, were clad in wet suits, tool pouches, hair pulled back in scarves, and they looked so intent.  I wanted to be them, knowing exactly where I was going and what I was doing.

      After paddling for what felt like miles, we came upon the man and woman we had seen earlier.  I felt like I had nothing to lose so I pulled alongside where they were digging and asked, "What is the etiquette on the river for fossiling right next to other fossilers?"  They ended up being so nice and welcoming and helpful, I am sending another thank you out to the universe at this moment.  Tanya and I dug in and got to work.

     Granted, I only have 1 season on the Peace River under my belt, but I still have to laugh when I think about that day.  The man and woman found so many cool things: camel teeth, horse teeth, shark teeth, deer antler, mammoth tooth chunks, etc, and we found...nothing.  I had to get out a couple of times to warm my numb feet but I kept at it.

     Finally, I looked in my screen and saw a very big shark tooth.  It was so beautiful and I started shouting with excitement.  The man asked what I found and I told him I thought it was a megalodon tooth but very worn as there were no serrations on it at all.  I waded over to show him and he corrected me, "That is a beautiful mako!  Nice find!"

     Mako?!  I didn't even know that was a possibility!  I stayed right where I was and as the sun started to sink in the sky I managed to add another mako, a tiger shark tooth, and a beautiful upper tooth from a snaggletooth shark.  If you're only gonna find a few fossils, might as well be good ones!

     We made our way back to our campsite and agreed we were camping in one of the strangest campgrounds we'd ever been in.  The wilderness area was crisscrossed by tracks and crowded with children, teens, and adults zooming around in golf carts, 3 and 4 wheelers, and dirt bikes.  The noise level was disturbing as was the site of toddlers steering golf carts, by themselves, unable to sit lest their feet not reach the peddles.  The only saving grace was that the whole camp pretty much went comatose shortly after sundown and then the silence was profound.

     Driving home the next afternoon, gazing at my fossils at every stop light, I was already planning my next visit to the Peace River.

Show and tell

     I attended my first meeting of the Fossil Club of Lee County on October 18, 2012.  Going to FCOLC meetings is no small feat for me.  It's a 4-5 hour drive, depending on traffic and how many stops I make, and since the meetings are on the 3rd Thursday of every month, I have to miss most of a day of work and I always get a cheap hotel room since it's too late for me to drive home afterwards.
     I was, of course, nervous to attend my first meeting.  I had my meg tooth and whale vertebra with me since the club president, Bill, had suggested I participate in show and tell.  I'm not much for public speaking and the fossil club doesn't serve wine or cocktails to help me overcome stage fright.
     My main goal was to network, get to know the fossil crowd, and gain information regarding the Peace River.  What I didn't know then was how jealously guarded people are about their digging sites.

      I understand now, after a season of digging, how much work goes into the hobby and how rare it is to make great finds these days especially for a part-time digger like myself who can only dig about once a week.
     But there I was, a stranger to everyone, a complete newbie, hoping someone would spoon feed me this precious info.
     I listened to the guest speaker, I stood up and showed off my whale vertebra, I asked Bill where to go on the Peace River, I helped put away chairs, I asked again, I stood around like a buffoon (a PERSISTENT buffoon) while people filed out to go home, and I asked yet again.  That was when the only 3 people remaining, 3 of my "old guys" (more on that nickname in a minute) stood there looking at each other in silence trying to decide if I was worthy of their trust and information.  To their everlasting credit, they told me of a location, a good location and offered to let me tag along with them the next time our schedules coincided.
     In regards to my fondly referring to these men as "my old guys", well, none of them act old, that's for sure.  They kayak for miles, dig in water and gravel for hours, sometimes several times a week, maintain all manner of responsibilities, have families, etc, but they ARE in the upper half of the average  life span for members of our species residing in the USA.  Almost every Friday during the fossiling season, I spent the day with these men in their 60's or older and since I am an odd bird, I felt comfortable in this role.  Jack once pointed out that there are very few women who fossil the Peace River and even fewer who will spend the whole day on the river and fewer still who will dig all day with the guys.  That's me!  And remember that competitiveness I mentioned?  I hate being left out!

Mining for fossil gold

     My first, and so far only, trip to the Mosaic phosphate mine took place in early November 2012.  I got the directions to the area of the mine we were going to be allowed to enter and started driving very early since it's a 2-2.5 hour drive for me to visit the Peace River area.  I met some of the other people from FCOLC as we waited to convoy our vehicles into the mine.  Everyone was very nice but my excited anxiety and crazy uncontrolled competitiveness made me a nervous wreck!

     Once we got into the mine we had to sit through an hour long presentation about the process which, while very interesting and relevant, just about drove me nuts.  I wanted to find a megalodon tooth, just like the people in the YouTube videos.  It looked so easy!

     You can Google Florida phosphate mining if you want to know more but basically huge machines drag huge "buckets" in lines through the earth creating deep channels, like small canyons.  The landscape was other-worldly, nothing but dirt and gravel as far as I could see and suddenly, it didn't seem so easy.

     The president of the fossil club walked with me for a while and gave me pointers and I quickly found a couple of broken megs as well as other small shark teeth.  

     Here is a photo of what I was hoping to see:

 After about an hour, our guide told us we would be allowed to look at a better site and we all pretty much said, "Well, what are we waiting for?!  Let's go!"  He led us to a different area of gravel mounds that were much more productive and our group scattered to the four corners.

     I was climbing along the side of a gravel hill with a long drop into a valley of mud when I spotted a white vertebra in a crevice.  It was difficult to reach but I found a handhold on the hill and reached down until I retrieved it.  Something caused me to take a closer look at my "handhold" and I discovered it was another, far larger, vertebra embedded in the sand and gravel.  I carefully started chipping away with my screwdriver.  

     The whale vertebra was an exciting find and the club members told me that the deep gouges on it's side were made by a megalodon that was feeding on it.  Good stuff!  But while I was chipping it out, a young woman came over to look, glanced down, and discovered, right by my knee, a complete megalodon in the sand.  I was crushed, jealous, anxious, heartbroken, etc, but she was so encouraging and urged me to keep looking and that I would definitely find one.  I did as she said, toting my bucket of vertebrae and tooth fragments across the rocky wasteland and not 50 feet away from her megalodon, I found my own.

     After one full season of fossiling under my belt, it is still the best meg I've found.  These sharks have been extinct for 1-2 million years.  Look at the treasure they left behind!

Join the club

     Last summer, eager for an introduction to the Peace River, it seemed the best way to meet other fossilers and gain knowledge was to join a fossil club.

     I was still spending a lot of time in Tampa so I joined the Tampa Bay Fossil Club and then I checked out a few others, looking for a good selection of field trips.  The Orlando club didn't have any scheduled field trips at that time but I noticed that the Fossil Club of Lee County in Fort Myers had a trip planned to the Mosaic phosphate mine.  Anyone Googling fossils of Florida will come across amazing photos and videos from the phosphate mines; what a wonderland!

     I joined both clubs, paid my dues, and sent emails introducing myself and letting them know where my interests lay.  The way I see it, I'm already middle aged so I haven't any time to lose!

     I went to the Tampa meetings first since it's closer for me.  TBFC is a big club and I felt invisible at the meetings.  There are so many long-standing members, I didn't stand a chance of being included in the more coveted field trips.  I'm not dissing TBFC; they've got it going on!  But being a newbie and not very outgoing, I needed something a little more personalized.

     Sometimes everything falls into place and that's what happened with the Fossil Club of Lee County. It is a smaller club and a better fit for me.  The president of the club answered my email AND invited me on the Mosaic mine field trip!  I cannot begin to express how excited I was!

     The 4+ hour drive to Fort Myers is a pain and I can only attend meetings once a quarter but I've found my fossil club.

A very big tooth

     I became competitive, in my own mind, with one of the Apollo Beach locals.  I knew if he got there before I did, the short stretch of beach where the fossils wash up would be picked clean.

  It got to the point where I didn't want to go unless it was dawn and once or twice I wound up sitting in my truck for a while until the sun came up enough for me to see.

     This may seem off topic but as mid summer came around my mind was pulled in another direction:  scalloping in Homosassa.  I moved back to Florida in 2004 and quickly heard about the short scalloping season from my clients.  I was dating someone at the time who owned a boat and we went twice.  I loved it!  So relaxing, like a watery Easter egg hunt for adults, and with the delicious reward of scallops at the end of the day.  Alas, when that man left my life, so did the Florida bay scallops.  

     I don't have the money or know-how to rent a boat and I've found that, in middle age, it's hard to connect with a group of people that want me tagging along with them on an outing.  Several scallop seasons passed without me...

     Last year I got so desperate I called one of the local establishments to ask for the name of a boat captain and then I called that boat captain and asked what he would charge to let me tag along if he was below capacity on his boat.  The stars aligned and I met Capt. Mike who gave me a deal and let me go out with his other customers 2x last season.  Joy!

     All this was the preface to what I saw at the Homosassa boat ramp on my return from scalloping:  a very big tooth.

     I didn't know the owner of this tooth but he said I could photograph his necklace.  He told me he found the tooth and the "Indian beads" in the Peace River and he would be happy to take me fossiling as soon as the water levels went down.   Well...no.  I wasn't ready to head down a river with a stranger but it was time to look beyond Apollo Beach and do some serious planning.

Intermediate Fossiling

     One of my stepsons was looking at my Zookeeper Fossils web site and immediately categorized my fossiling experience:

     Venice Beach is for beginners, Apollo Beach is intermediate, and Peace River is advanced.  Pretty astute for a 12 year old.

     When I'm with someone who is fossiling for the first time they always ask, "How do I know what to look for?" and I always reply, "Look for order in chaos."  The key is spotting shapes that are straighter, rounder, or more angular than the surrounding shells or gravel.  I honed this skill at Venice Beach.

     It was at Apollo Beach where I started finding fossils that, while still small, were in excellent condition. I went there so often during the summer of 2012 that some of the locals started to recognize me.  One woman, in particular, was there almost every time I went.  She lives in the area and included a walk on the beach in her daily exercise routine, using it, also, as an opportunity to pick up trash and broken glass littering the sand.  Like many people, she was curious to know what I was looking for, and I shared my scant knowledge and immense enthusiasm.  I'm proud to say I got her hooked on the hobby and she found some great fossils that summer, making sure to keep them with her for show and tell in case she ran in to me.

     The photo includes drum teeth (4 and 5 sided objects on the left side), tiny armadillo scutes (6 sided objects above the drum teeth), a pointy alligator tooth, spiny sting ray barbs, and fragments of mammoth tusk, among other things.

Apollo Beach and beyond

     I was hot to go to the Peace River at the beginning of summer 2012 but the information I read on the internet indicated that high water levels during the rainy season meant that Peace River fossil hunting could only take place in the fall and winter.
     DANG!!!
     I had my kayaks and the fossil screens I'd made using internet instructions but I'd have to wait.
     Truth be told, I'm not very brave and I was having a hard time imagining just showing up in southwest Florida, picking a point along a 106 mile river, and hoping for the best.  So I researched fossil sites in the Tampa area where I was spending a lot of time with my boyfriend and the name "Apollo Beach" popped up.
     My friend, Tanya, was curious to try the Venice Beach fossil experience so we planned a camping weekend that ended with a reconnaissance mission to Apollo Beach on our way back to Orlando.

     Located on the ass-end of Tampa Bay is a little hell hole called Apollo Beach and I got to know that stretch of sand very well.  The main things I noticed on my first visit were the frightful view and the murky water that actually felt hot.  And the Pleistocene fossil material.  Fossilized turtle shell everywhere!

     Suddenly, I couldn't visit Apollo Beach enough.  My boyfriend quickly learned to use an Apollo Beach outing as a bribe if I wasn't feeling like making the 2 hour drive to visit him.

     From the beach I could see several spoil islands and my imagination ran wild with what undiscovered treasures were waiting, but between the beach and the islands is a dark channel that gives me the creeps (remember, I said I'm a puss).

     I took my lightweight kayak once and it was a fairly unpleasant experience.  I wasn't familiar with my transport wheels and absolutely hated dicking around with them and my 14' kayak in the hot parking lot while everyone walked by staring.  Then, as I headed down the sidewalk toward the beach, my nemesis cruised past:  The Naysayer, a recurring creature in my life.  This time it took the shape of an elderly woman who felt compelled to halt her vehicle, roll down the window, and shout, "Are you going to kayak here?" I nodded.  "There's huge bull sharks in the channel and I just saw one jump several feet out of the water."

    Thank you.  Have a nice day.

     I can never leave well enough alone so I said, "Maybe it was a dolphin," which instantly insulted her and she drove on, leaving me to certain doom.  What she said started my mind roiling so the paddle across the blessedly narrow channel was nerve wracking.  The islands were surrounded with metal and concrete structures so the approach was hairy, and although I did find a partial beaver tooth and a large chunk of fossilized bone, I was glad to return to the side with the parking lot.

    I'm saying it now and I'll say it again, I think some Naysayers really just wish they were trying something new, too.  :-)

Florida native

     I was born in Florida in 1965 and spent my first 5 years here, soaking up the beach lifestyle in Bradenton.  Then my parents took me and the siblings back to their home state of Missouri where I spent the next 35 years.  THEN on the eve of my 40th birthday, in the middle of 3 hurricanes, I returned to my homeland, Florida...difficult, bitch-goddess state of Florida.  I love it!

     My mom loved the shells and fossilized shark teeth that she found on the beaches and elsewhere, and took us on forays armed with sun hats and gallon milk jugs with a hole cut in the side for a bucket.

She shipped all her finds to Missouri where I grew up, sorting through them when it was too cold to fathom playing outside.  There was always a little part of my imagination that never left the beach.
   

     I started vacationing in Florida in my 30's even though we didn't have any family or friends still living there; I just wanted to go to Florida.  And I started finding my own fossilized shark teeth on the beaches.

     Even though I ultimately moved to central Florida, I began visiting Venice Beach, a 4 hour drive, to comb Manasota Key for tiny fossils and, of course, to enjoy the inviting beaches and water.  

     The fossils of Venice Beach are worn to a beautiful shine and exhibit warm hues of red and amber.  Each fossil looks like a tiny jewel.  I was hooked and ignorant of the rest of Florida's fossil wealth so I burned up the interstates for years to visit Venice Beach and Englewood.

     I was kayaking on the Suwannee River about 3 years ago when I found a fossilized shark tooth that changed everything.  It was far bigger than any shark tooth I had found in the past and I was so excited about it that when some women at the boat ramp wanted to see it, my OCD self wouldn't let them actually hold it, lol.

    I started Googling Florida fossils and one location came up repeatedly:  Peace River.

    I had to get to the Peace River but even that would be a journey in itself.