{"id":607,"date":"2020-12-11T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/familytrailblazers.com\/?p=607"},"modified":"2021-02-12T04:11:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T04:11:35","slug":"shark-tooth-hunting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/familytrailblazers.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/11\/shark-tooth-hunting\/","title":{"rendered":"Shark Tooth Hunting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shark Tooth Island, Savannah, GA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who doesn\u2019t love a good treasure hunt?  In Savannah Georgia, there is a unique\nopportunity to find treasure (fossils) as easily as walking down the beach and\npicking them up.  The Savannah River (on\nthe border between Georgia and South Carolina) gets a lot of freight ships that\npass through.  In order to make sure the\nwaterway is deep enough for these massive ships, the riverbed is constantly\nbeing dredged by huge machines.  The\nsediment that they pick up from the river floor (spoil) is then deposited on\nthese manmade islands.  One of these\nislands was nicknamed \u201cShark Tooth Island\u201d. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Because of the position of the island, the strong river\ncurrents, quick rising tides, and wakes from passing freighters, it is not\nadvisable to kayak out to these islands yourself.  Even if you have your own boat, it was not\nadvised to anchor it to the Island because of the quick tides and the wakes\nfrom ships.  Apparently, it can damage\nsmaller boats.  There are many local\ncompanies in the area which offer boat rides to the island.  They drop you off and then come back a few\nhours later to pick you up.  This seemed\nlike the safest option, even if it is not exactly the cheapest.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I researched different companies offering rides to the\nIsland, but because it was the off-season, my options were actually quite\nlimited.  We ended up choosing the Bull River\nMarina<\/a>.  They were right off Rte 80\non the way to Tybee Island.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The cost when we went was $65 for adults and $55 for children\nunder 12.  I was getting used to places\noffering free admission for children 3 and under, but this was not one of\nthem.  There is an option for a private boat\ntrip for up to 6 people and costs $390, but that doesn\u2019t really seem like any\nkind of a discount to me (6 X $65 = $390). \nBecause it was the off season, they offered a bit of a discount for us\nto go.  They were also kind enough to not\ncharge us for a private boat trip even though we were the only ones on our\nboat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we booked our trip over the phone, the lady at Bull\nRiver Marina looked up the tide information and gave me some options on which\ndays we could go and when.  You want to\nbe at the Island for low tide for the best chance of finding fossils along the\nlow-tide waterline.  And the low tide\ntime changes with each day.  There are approximately\n12 hours and 25 minutes between low tides. \nThis means if low tide is at 9:00 AM on Monday, then it will be ~9:50 AM\non Tuesday.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bull River Marina was also flexible with the amount of\ntime we wanted to stay on the island.  We\ncould have stayed a shorter or longer amount of time if requested.  We just couldn\u2019t change our minds the day of\nour trip because they already had planned other boat rides around our\ntrip.  I will say that I wish we had stayed\na bit longer than the 4 hours we requested. \n  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were told that we should bring our own shovels, but that\nwe could borrow some sifting tools from them. \nThe sifting tools turned out to be simple plastic cooking colanders, but\nwhatever, they worked and they were lightweight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boat ride out to the Island was relaxing.  It was a fast boat so there was a lot of wind\nin our faces, but we luckily had nice weather. \nOur captain was nice.  He was from\nthe area but had no real interest in shark tooth hunting himself.  He just liked being out on the water.  He did give us some tips and told us stories\nabout what other people had found.  That\ngot us excited.  I was ready to find a\nmegalodon tooth  \ud83d\ude0a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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on our way to Shark Tooth Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When we got off the boat, we didn\u2019t have to get in the water\nat all.  The boat went right to the shore\nand we got off on the sand.  I can\u2019t say\nthe same for when we got picked up (because of the tide).  I had to take my boots off, hike up my pants\nand wade into the water to get into the boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we were on the island, we had a lot of options on where\nto look.  Technically the island is under\nthe jurisdiction of the US Army Corp of Engineering so they don\u2019t want you\ngoing up beyond the top of the rock embankment on Northern side.  They are still dumping more material on these\nislands and don\u2019t need you getting in the way. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We walked along the shoreline just scanning the ground.  We weren\u2019t really sure what we were looking\nfor, but figured we would know it when we saw it.  One thing that helped is we were told to look\nfor black shiny objects in the shape of a \u201cT\u201d rather than looking for a triangle\nshape.  That did actually seem to\nhelp.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It only took a few minutes of hunting around before we found\nour first tooth.  I remember being pretty\nexcited about it.  Especially since it\nwas just lying on the ground on top of the sand and rocks.  After a few more minutes, we found a few\nadditional shark teeth on the beach near the waters edge.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point, we decided to break apart and check out\ndifferent areas to hunt and see what we could find.  Our options seemed to be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n