My trip to Brownie's Beach

[KimTexan]

Last week I flew out to Baltimore for a conference for my work. The conference ended Friday morning. I had arranged to stay through Sunday in Maryland to go fossil hunting. Friday afternoon I caught an Uber to a car rental place and then drove the rental car down to Brownie's beach on Chesapeake Bay. It was about a 90 minute drive. The drive was beautiful once I got past Annapolis. It was lush and green with many farms and homes on large pieces of land. It started sprinkling just after I got on highway 2. I made it to the area now named Bayfront Park. The park seemed to consist of maybe 20 parking spots max with a trail of maybe 0.1 miles down to the beach. Along the path were small signs on stakes identifying some of the local trees. There were no facilities present.

I parked my car. It was still sprinkling. I changed my shoes, put on ball cap and sweater to provide some protection from the rain. I was wearing capris so that I could walk in the water a bit. The temperatures had been in the 80s most of the time I had been in Maryland, but that day it was in the mid 60s. I arrived around 2:30 PM. Low tide was not till 6:40. I didn't know what to expect. I was told to turn right to head to the cliffs. So I did. The beach consisted of maybe 20 feet of sand between the woods and the water. There may have been 800 meters of beach between the entry point and where the shore made a sharp 90 degree turn east, making an L shape where a small cove was. The bank ran maybe 50 feet east before making a 90 degree turn going south again.

The beach was littered with dead horseshoe crabs big and small. There were not any shells or anything much else on the beach. There were quite a few shell fragments of fossilized shells. Some had pretty patterns on them. There was a family with 4-5 young children on the beach. The dad was hunting for shark teeth with a screen and colander. Other than the family there was no one else on the beach, but there were 3 cars in the parking lot when I arrived. So, at least 2 other people had to be somewhere along the beach.

About 20 minutes after I made it to the beach a local man came down onto the beach for a walk. He stopped to talk to me and asked what I was doing. He said he had hunted shark teeth there for years, but had quit hunting and just came down to walk the beach for the enjoyment of it.

 

Oops sorry folks my computer is a laptop and a bit glitchy and somehow it posted this before I was done. I am still working on it. I'll get there eventually. Piece by piece. 

[Steve D.]

I fly to Baltimore all the time (I'm actually here now) and I normally will take off an afternoon and head down to Calvert State Park.. I have yet to find a solid location to do some good digging or exploring. Appreciate your sharing the trip! 

[KimTexan]

14 hours ago, Steve D. said:

I fly to Baltimore all the time (I'm actually here now) and I normally will take off an afternoon and head down to Calvert State Park.. I have yet to find a solid location to do some good digging or exploring. Appreciate your sharing the trip! 

Oops I got distracted. There was also a computer glitch that made it appear that this post was deleted or didn’t post at all initially. I messaged an admin. They must have fixed it. I didn’t realize the list was showing.

Everyone I talked to said the cliffs at Calvert we’re closed off and access was not permitted. So I didn’t go to Calvert, but I did go to Matoaka Beach. I didn’t find teeth, but I did find lots of whole cool shells.

 

I don’t know if you figured it out, but when I was at Brownie’s I found 80% of my teeth imbedded in a gray clay on the beach at the bend before it makes the 90 degree turn to go around the corner. There are 2 large trees down there in the little L shaped cove. I found 30 small teeth in all, but 20+ were in that gray clay. There is also a tan and then a green clay in the same spot. I didn’t find any teeth in the green or tan clay. I just looked for black specs in the gray clay, dug then out and that is how I found about 24 teeth. They were all 2 cm and under though. But I imagine there are bigger ones in there. I also found small black phosphatized gastropods and clams there.

They are small and not much to look at, but these are my favorite teeth found in the gray clay.

[Darktooth]

Not bad for your first time.

[Steve D.]

Very awesome. Those clay bricks are tricky sometimes. Do you have the address for Brownie?

[Steve D.]

nevermind! Got it! Was there a cost to get in?

[KimTexan]

4 hours ago, Darktooth said:

Not bad for your first time.

I was happy to find what I found, but had hoped to find something a bit bigger. The wife of the family had found a nice Snaggle tooth of maybe an inch, but the dad who had a screen and colander hand only been finding  teeth like I found.

 

Well continuing with the story.

The man who came down onto the beach was a local who came there regularly. He was in his 50s. He was very friendly and visited a while. He asked if I had found anything. I told him I had not, but this was my first time there. He went to see what the dad was finding. He came back with 3 small shark teeth and gave them to me. I happily thanked him. 

Then he just kept hanging out and began to ask a lot of questions. Did you come to the beach alone? Are you married? Do you have kids? How many? Boys or girls? Do they have pretty blond hair like you? Where are you staying tonight? On and on he went asking questions. I just kept trying to be civil, but not too engaging. He was creeping me out. I’d walk down the beach more and he’d follow. He must have hung around for 2 hours! 

 

I came to the L shaped part of the beach. Right before the 90 degree turn there was exposed clay without any sand. The tide had not gone out yet so at this spot the land  rose up and rather than beach there was an embankment. The waves were lapping at the base of the enbankment. The water was quite shallow though and reasonably clear. There was a wind blowing from the east driving the water inland. During my stay on Saturday and Sunday I received numerous notifications about coastal flooding. There was no rain when I got the notifications so it had to be due the the wind driving the water inland.

At the base of the embankment was clay. The first bit of clay as I walked from North to south along the beach was a pretty sea foam green color. Then there was some light to medium gray clay. The green clay seemed to overlay the gray clay in spots. The green clay layer seemed only inches thick at this point. The exposed stretch of gray clay was maybe 10-15 feet long there at the bank, before it sloped down into the water and was covered with sand. Then there was some tan clay immediately after the gray. All the clay was a very fine and smooth texture with no graininess. 

 

I saw little black specks in the gray clay. I had seen small black stuff like this before in the North Sulphur River and it was usually fossilized material. I picked a few of the black inclusions out with my fingernails. A number of them were shark teeth. Yay!

These were some I found in the gray clay. I posted them above. Sorry for the repeat pics. The 2 pics are the same teeth, just both sides.

I had found my own first shark teeth there. I also found tiny gastropods and fragments of them and some small phosphatized clams as well as amorphous phosphatic material. The area was pretty small to work in. Maybe 10-15 feet long and only 3-4 feet wide that was accessible since the tide was still up. Also the two large trees that had fallen from the enbankment were in the way on top of some of the clay.

I found over 20 teeth there in the gray clay and 30 teeth total. All fairly small some very tiny, maybe 4 mm. There were small potholes that had formed in the clay. I checked the potholes for teeth and found a few in them.

I tried to group them together by type, but I now see I have mixed some up. I’ve never found these type of teeth before and am just learning. So please correct me or point me in the right direction.

Pic 1 not counting pics above.

—I am thinking all on the top, but 2, those with the v shaped root with tooth strongly slanted are tiger (Galeocerdo aduncus) shark teeth with the exception of 2.

—First and 4th on the top row. I think they may be Requiem/Gray (Charcharhinus sp.) shark teeth. 

—I think some of those with the flat, non-v shaped root with tooth straight or perpendicular to the root are Lemon (Negaprion eubathrodon) shark teeth. Such as bottom row, 4th from the left and some in the 3rd pic.

—Some with the non-v roots with a slant tooth may be Hammerhead (Sphyma laevissima).

 

Pic 2

I am not sure what these are. Maybe Sand (Carcharis). I think the one in the middle is something else. The root is broken, but it looks shorter, fatter and more arched than the others.

 

Pic 3

Charcharhinus sp. Maybe the first two on 2 second row on left.

I think these are a mix of Lemon (Negaprion eubathrodon) and Hammerhead (Sphyma laevissima) shark teeth, but I’m just guessing. The 3 & 4 on tow 2 I think are Hammerhead, but I could be wrong.

The bottom row is the same as pic 2, but I kept the row in for the ruler.

I think the 2 on the far right top and bottom row are each Lemons. 

I found a few other teeth, but they were fragments.

 

I did not find any recognizable phosphatic material in the green or tan clay. As I had moved down the beach the Dad had been hanging out in the area. I imagine he may have collected some in that area. So there could have been some in the green or tan clay and he had removed them.

 

Where the bank began to rise the base was a light tan clay. Higher up in the bank it became more granular even sandy in places like a soft sandstone. Then it transitioned to soil with tree roots protruding into the clay layer. The top soil was the common dark brown to black soil seen in forrest floor environments with decomposing leaf and wood material at the top, which was some 20+ feet up.

 

In the embankment above the clay was a layer of dark tan to light brown layer that was more granular and harder. There were imprints of clams and gastropods in this layer, but they had either eroded out or had been collected. I didn’t see a single shell remaining in the layer oddly enough despite the distinct imprints. This layer was about 3 feet up. The imprints appeared to be of mostly whole shells.

I’m sorry to say I didn’t take any pictures of the layers or the beach in that area. I think I was a bit distracted and distressed by the man asking questions. I hung out in the small L shaped cove area for maybe 2 hours or so waiting for the tide to recede. As I hung out there 2 young men came from around the bend wading thigh high in water. They had screens and other shark teeth hunting tools. Long poles with a scoop made of a wire mesh on the end seemed to be common for teeth hunting. I saw several people with these homemade devices hunting the beaches over the weekend. Another man came wading in the water from the south around the bend also carrying shark tooth hunting tools.

These 2 men leaving accounted for one to 2 cars in the parking lot. The third man for yet another.

I wasn’t counting cars in the parking lot, but evidently the man was. He asked me which car I was driving. I didn’t realize till later that is what he was doing.

The man hung around there for maybe an hour in the little cove with me. Finally he said he needed to go make dinner before his wife got home from work. I was relieved when he finally left. I thought I was done with him. But maybe 30 min or so later he came back. This time he was trying to get me to come to his house with promises of shark teeth and sea shell fossils. He was very persistent. Then he tried to get me to agree to go shell hunting with him the next day. I declined all offers. After the last man had come from around the bend and the family had left, I was the only one left on the beach. The man tried to get me to go around the bend to the cliff area with him, but I refused. Finally after a while he finally left. I think he needed to be home when his wife got there. It was a little after 5:00 PM. Low tide was at 6:40. The water at the bend was about 15 inches deep now give or take. I had asked the two young men if there was any beach around the bend. They had said there was. I wanted to go around the bend to the cliff area to hunt, but I was nervous to go since I was concerned the man may come back and I’d be alone there in that isolated place by myself.

I am not one to let fear of that nature prevent me from living my life and going places I wish to go. So I decided to go around the bend.

 

[Walt]

  This is like a good mystery novel....will the bad man return?  What will happen?

 

I saw a good idea on the show Longmire.... this girl was hitchhiking, but before she would get in the car she would take a picture of the guy and send it to a friend.  She still got killed though....

[KimTexan]

Walking onto the beach there were large red warning signs informing people to not go to the cliff area, because they were dangerous due to frequent avalanches. I was entering at my own risk.

I hunt the North Sulfur River (NSR) in Texas, which has high, vertical banks about 30 feet high that are avalanche prone. So I am accustomed to avalanches. I was nearly caught in one in the (NSR), but managed to get away and only be enveloped in a dust cloud and be hit on the back of my legs with some of the debris. I think I keep my guardian angel busy.

The tide going out had still not caused the water to recede much. It was about 1730 so the tide was almost at its low. I guess the wind was blowing the water inland. 

From this point on the bay you could not see the other side of the bay. It may have been poor visibility due to the rain.

The water was still over 1 foot deep as I rounded the corner.

I had expected the bottom to slope away quickly from the beach, but it was a very gradual slant and you could go quite a ways out without it getting too deep.

 

I didn’t want to get too wet. It was mid 60s and it had been raining and the water was in the low 70s. I had been out there and wet for over 3 hours and was a bit on the cool side.

The guy had found me a piece of wood to use as a walking stick. While creepy he was thoughtful and nice. I might be able to use it to fight him off should he return with ill intentions.

The stick was for feeling the bottom with. The water was turbid and you couldn’t see through it. There were chunks of rocks and potholes you could trip over or step into and fall. So the stick was helpful mostly for not tripping over avalanche material at the base of the embankment. After rounding the bend the embankment rose to what seemed to be 75 +/- feet or about 1.5 tree heights. 

There were numerous fallen trees at the base of the cliffs. Some were parallel to the cliffs and up against them. Others were perpendicular and stretched out 50 feet or so out into the water.

I think forgot to mention that there were dead horseshoe crabs scattered all along the beach. Some were small and some good medium size ones. I picked up several along the way to see if they were still alive to try to help save them, but none of them moved. Here is a pic of one.

 

Here is a view of the beach and cliffs looking South. There are vines and vegetation growing down the cliffs so they don’t look 70 feet. There is a large chunk of cliff fallen with a few small trees on top of it.  I think that chunk is taller than I am. This is close to 1830 so the tide is at its low.

 

This is looking Northward on the beach once I had walked a ways. There is a fallen tree parallel to the beach and a cluster of 3 farther up the beach.

 

The beach was pretty free and clear of anything at all, but at the base of the cliffs were pockets of shell fragments along with a mix of a lot of other stuff. There were very few whole shells on the beach, but I managed to find a few. This is one of them.

 

This is what some of the pockets of debris looked like. In this pic there are 2 small shark teeth. One is near my pinky and the other by my index finger by the black egg shaped rock.

I didn’t find many teeth in the area. I’m sure the 3 men had picked up whatever they found, which I doubt left much low hanging fossil fruit for me to find.

I did find a bit of bone material though. I found a lot of fragments, a few small vertebrae, some turtle shell fragments and some single bar fragments of ray dental pavement plates. I’ll share my other finds in my next post.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

There are certain words (unspeakable on this forum) that are quite effective at shutting guys down, but they are probably uncomfortable for you.  Learn and use them in an offputting manner.  Also, you might benefit from keeping pepper spray on/in hand.

[Jeffrey P]

That shell is Glycymeris perilis, a bittersweet clam.

[minnbuckeye]

It is sad that women who "walk a beach" alone have to be in fear of potential molestation. Unfortunately, men for the most part do not have any idea of what women experience. The "gentleman" was completely out of order with his probing and this saddens me that you had to experience this. Hopefully the Me Too movement along with a new generation of better educated  young men can make a change in this world so that women can experience the same freedom as a man. Being a vocal advocate of women's rights,  may I suggest that in the future, let your discomfort be known to anyone expressing himself this way, that is as long as the mace is in one hand. Silence does not bring on change!

 

At least the hunt was successful in spite of him. NICE post!

 

 

[fossilus]

Its been hard for me to admit this, but fossil hunting is generally safer when I'm not alone. 

I love finding the best stuff with no competition.

But for me it was a friend two houses down that almost died of a heart attack- were it not for CPR and EMTs.

 

Just be smart.

 

 

[KimTexan]

12 minutes ago, Jeffrey P said:

That shell is Glycymeris perilis, a bittersweet clam.

Thank you very much. You may be able to help me with a few IDs on shells I collected at Matoaka Beach. Hopefully I’m spelling it correctly. I hope to post that next. I did visit the Calvert Marine Museum and spoke with one of the fossils guys there who gave a little tour of the back room and prep lab. I took lots of pics of their fossil collection to help me with my IDs.

 

25 minutes ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

There are certain words (unspeakable on this forum) that are quite effective at shutting guys down, but they are probably uncomfortable for you.  Learn and use them in an offputting manner.  Also, you might benefit from keeping pepper spray on/in hand.

Unfortunately for me, in this instance at least, I was raised as one of those southern girls who is always polite.

Granted, I definitely have a line that once a man crosses it physically or verbally he gets a very frank piece of my mind and then some. 

I have had issues with blatant sexual harassment a few times over the years. In college I had not learned to speak up and didn’t know how to deal with it. Thankfully I have learned a lot over the years. I would have dealt with all the guys in college very differently if I knew what I know now.  I need to be more assertive sooner than I currently am. 

I have never carried mace. When I am out alone in remote areas here in Texas I usually carry a knife and a gun. I almost always carry a knife. I didn’t want any issues at the airport so I left my weapons at home. I’ve met a few women hunting who carry a knife on their hip. I may need to get me one like that. My current one is a folding pocket knife with a 3.5 inch blade.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

9 minutes ago, KimTexan said:

Thank you very much. You may be able to help me with a few IDs on shells I collected at Matoaka Beach. Hopefully I’m spelling it correctly. I hope to post that next. I did visit the Calvert Marine Museum and spoke with one of the fossils guys there who gave a little tour of the back room and prep lab. I took lots of pics of their fossil collection to help me with my IDs.

 

Unfortunately for me, in this instance at least, I was raised as one of those southern girls who is always polite.

Granted, I definitely have a line that once a man crosses it physically or verbally he gets a very frank piece of my mind and then some. 

I have had issues with blatant sexual harassment a few times over the years. In college I had not learned to speak up and didn’t know how to deal with it. Thankfully I have learned a lot over the years. I would have dealt with all the guys in college very differently if I knew what I know now.  I need to be more assertive sooner than I currently am. 

I have never carried mace. When I am out alone in remote areas here in Texas I usually carry a knife and a gun. I almost always carry a knife. I didn’t want any issues at the airport so I left my weapons at home. I’ve met a few women hunting who carry a knife on their hip. I may need to get me one like that. My current one is a folding pocket knife with a 3.5 inch blade.

While I too carry concealed legally wherever it makes sense, when traveling I don't always have that option, especially overseas.  My next line of defense packs easily in luggage without causing suspicion.  I pack an extra tube sock and a couple C or D size batteries separately, then once at my destination I drop the batteries into the sock, slip it in my pocket, and leave just a bit of the sock hanging out, if I end up in questionable places.  Human nature is an unpredictable thing.

[KimTexan]

18 minutes ago, fossilus said:

Its been hard for me to admit this, but fossil hunting is generally safer when I'm not alone. 

I love finding the best stuff with no competition.

I agree it is best to not hunt alone. I tried for a long time to find a hunting buddy. I had a number of unsafe situations that arose while hunting alone be it human, animal or accidental injury. So I looked and I tried several people. None of the men worked out. Old or young they seemed to develop a bit too much attraction or attachment to me for my taste. I’m very friendly, kind, thoughtful, sweet and easy going. Evidently that is a problem. 

I do have one woman I have hunted with a few times. She contacted me, because she like to hunt, but is afraid to hunt alone. She has helped me a couple times. I’ve agreed to take some men hunting, but didn’t know the men well enough to know if I was safe with them or not so she would agree to go for safety, but she lives a ways away. 

 

It is next to impossible to find someone when traveling though. Although on my Matoaka Beach hunt I crossed paths with another woman hunter, also named Kim who was my age and we hunted for maybe 4 hours together and then I went and spent part of the evening with her and her husband. We had an absolutely delightful time. One I don’t think I will ever forget.

[KimTexan]

As I walked along the beach by the cliffs the thing I found most were bone fragments. There were also large chunks of hard clay like material filled with masses of shell material that had fallen from above. The shells appeared to be mostly crushed.

 Here is some of the bone material. A lot of it is chunkosaurus. But some I believe is reasonably identifiable.

In this pic I believe these pieces are all vertebrae related. Top left is a small mammal vertebra with part of the spinous process still present. The next two I am just guessing they are vertebral fragments based on shape. The far left one has a thin, narrow broken off part that I assume was a spinous process attachment point.

The bottom 2 pieces are epiphysis or vertebral disks I believe.  

 

I think these may all be turtle parts. They are all definitely bone.

First one I have no idea what it is, but I think turtle. 2nd one I think is a scute. It has a ridge running down the middle on both sides. The last 2 on the top row I’m pretty sure are turtle shell pieces.

2nd row piece of bone that tapers to a very thin edge. Could be a piece of spinous process or something else. 2nd piece looks like a rib fragment. It is slightly curved and becomes thin on one end. Last piece I don’t know what it is. Possibly turtle, but I don’t know what the texture is. It is smooth and flat on the back side.

 

These are single bar fragments of ray dental pavement plates.

[KimTexan]

These are fish vert

4 hours ago, Steve D. said:

nevermind! Got it! Was there a cost to get in?

No it is free. There are no facilities there. Just a small parking lot and maybe a .1 mile paved path to the beach.

It is called Bayfront Park in the town of Chesapeake Beach I think it is.

To go around to the cliffs there was still a foot of water you had to walk through even at low tide. But that was probably because of the winds. 

Mad ai walked around the bend it felt like the bottom may have been clay there too, but it was under water so I couldn’t tell if it had teeth in it too. A knife or screwdriver would have been nice to help dig out the black pieces.

 

[KimTexan]

I also found these, but I don’t know what they are. The one on the right may just be a bone fragment. It doesn’t have the teeth like the others.

 

These are phosphatic clam and gastropod pieces on the left that I found in the clay. On the right are 3 fish vertebra. I think I found the 2 small ones in the clay and the bigger one by the cliffs. The bigger one has nice spiky detail.

 

I think that is about it for the finds. I found some other stuff too like a few clams and gastropods a bit like turitella.

 

It was nearing dark. I began the trip back. I got to the cluster of 3 trees stretching out into the water. I didn’t want to walk in the water so I opted to climb over the trees which were almost chest high. The bottom 2 trees spent a lot of time under water. The bark was gone and the trunks were slippery. I had climbed over them on my way south. When I reached them heading north I took off my pack and put the last few items I’d found in it. I set it on the top tree trunk. I stepped up onto one of the lower trees. I went to swing my other leg up over the top trunk, but as I did so my foot slipped on the lower trunk and since my other leg was about 4 feet up from the ground, my whole body instantly went horizontal and strangely enough my knee, hip and shoulder all hit the wet sand at the same time with one big jarring thud. I imagine it must have looked like one of those WWF smack downs where one wrestler gets his feet knocked out from under him and his whole body slams to the ground at once. I don’t watch wrestling, but you can’t help but have seen commercials of it.

Surprisingly I was totlally fine, except for being jabbed by a branch in the chest as I went down. No back sprang, pulled muscles or bruises. Woohoo! I thought for sure I’d barely be able to move the next day due to back pain, but I was fine.

I made it round the bend and there was a young family there with a Dad hunting for teeth with his small daughter. The mom was standing in the waves holding a small infant. I showed the dad some of my finds and headed to my car. I got there about dark.

I had rented a room at the Motel 6 in Lexington Park. It was the cheapest place I could find. As a single mom I can’t afford much. I cannot recommend the place. It was a slum! The clerk gave me a room in the last building. Two other buildings were nearby, but were not being used. They were run down. There was one other car there. It was about 2100 and the place felt very isolated. I automatically felt uncomfortable. I was up on the 2nd floor. I grab some of my stuff and went to the room. A man was standing there in the doorway at the next room just watching me. My key didn’t work! My arms were full, I was tired, dirty, wet and cold. I walked back downstairs to my car. Struggled to find my keys. I put everything back in the car and drove back to the office. I told the clerk my key didn’t work and that I did not feel safe over there in that building. She gave me a different room for $13 more. It was $69. In Texas you can get a fairly decent room for that price. The room I got has insects in it. The AC/heat consisted of a window unit. There were other residents there, but they looked like they lived there. A young mother of an infant and the baby’s dad were next door. Both parents were smoking wile the mom held her baby. 2nd hand smoke and infants are bad news. I’m in healthcare and have very strong opinions about smoking around kids.

There were people fighting somewhere below. Kids playing outside laughing and yelling till after midnight.

I went in my non-smoking room. The window unit just pulled the cigarette smoke into my room. It wasn’t clean. The floors were dirty. There was no shower curtain.

It had a heat setting. I turned it on heat but it just blew cold air. I was cold as wet and wanted to be warm. I called the front desk about the heat. I was told they don’t turn the heat on till November. There were a lot of other issues with the room, but I’ll just say I didn’t want to stay a 2nd night. I was going to find another place even if I had to pay a little more. 

The next morning I got up packed and checked before out heading to the Calvert Marine Museum and the Matoaka Beach to hunt. 

 

Hope you enjoyed the post and it was informative. I hope to write the Matoaka Beach trip report soon.

[Walt]

14 minutes ago, KimTexan said:

It was a slum!

I had my last "6" experience about 6 months ago.  Never again.  They have really gone down hill and that is saying something.  

Fun fact:  I paid $11 including tax when I stayed at my first motel 6 in Phoenix, AZ. 

[Steve D.]

Just got back from there!!! I think you literally found everything hahahahahaha

 

It is a nice little hidden gem and a great experience. I'm starting to think I should give up on finding shark teeth. I just don't have the eye for it! 

[Wolf89]

24 minutes ago, KimTexan said:

I also found these, but I don’t know what they are. The one on the right may just be a bone fragment. It doesn’t have the teeth like the others.

 

all 4 are sting ray tail spines 

[KimTexan]

6 minutes ago, Steve D. said:

Just got back from there!!! I think you literally found everything hahahahahaha

 

It is a nice little hidden gem and a great experience. I'm starting to think I should give up on finding shark teeth. I just don't have the eye for it! 

Oh no! I’m sorry! I did spend almost 2 hours in that little area picking out every black speck from the clay that I could find while I waited for the tide to go out. I would have never spent that long there if the tide had gone out.

Was the tide low when you went? Did you find the gray clay layer and look for black specks?

 

Don't give up on finding teeth. I think I had found 5 or 6 shark teeth in my life and all but 1 was an accident. They were all pretty small. I have yet to find one over an inch. But I am happy with what I found at Brownie’s

[KimTexan]

15 minutes ago, Wolf89 said:

all 4 are sting ray tail spines 

Thank you. Even the 4th without the detail! It looks a bone like splintery material.

[FossilDAWG]

You do have some awful luck!

I stayed at a Motel 6 in Hamburg NY when I stopped by Penn Dixie last May. It was decently clean and comfortable.  I have had a couple of bad experiences at other cut-rate hotels but most are OK considering the cost.  Also I tend to arrive covered in mud and dirt from the field so I generally leave them dirtier than they were when I arrived, though I try to clean up as much as I can.

 

The worst incident I can recall hearing about concerned a friend of mine who collected skulls.  Many years ago he was staying at a motel in Half Moon Bay California and he found a dead seal on the beach.  He cut off the head and smuggled it up to his room and de-fleshed the skull in the bathtub.  When he was done he tried to clean up but the drain got plugged with seal bits so he had to leave the tub full of bloody water.  I'm told it looked like a murder scene.  I think he got himself permanently banned from that place.

 

Don