Peace River – Florida 1-2015

Day 2 of the trip found us in Arcadia, FL, teaming up with Mark Renz to do some screening in the Peace River. Andy and Yvonne had only come along for the Quarry – so the 5 of us remaining were joined by a couple Mark had invited and together we all made our way down the bank and into the river. WOW! It was COLD! Mark showed us all the proper technique and we got down to some serious screening. Most of us worked in teams – one shoveling and the other holding the 2 screens. This seemed to work best. The water level was a little high, so it was better to have the taller of the two do the shoveling – lest the shorter person might find themselves underwater when leaning into a scoop! We recovered lots of small shark teeth, including several good sized Hemipristis. We also found several puffer fish mouth plates, fish skulls, croc teeth, horse teeth sections, Indian beads (?), turtle plates, sturgeon scoots and broken pieces of bone. Despite the cool water, we stayed in for hours and hours – laughing and playing and digging – and practically had to drag our Mark and Becky out at the end of the day. We spread out our “finds” on a nearby picnic table and admired each other’s “catches”. All of us were feeling the muscle aches of so much shoveling and bending and looked forward to a hot bath and a soft bed that night.