#8 Treasure!

After being in Sebring for several days, we decided to take a drive and see the old part of town. Guess what? We ran into a street fair and were told that nearby the County Fair was in progress. After wandering through the many stalls, we decided to skip the county fair.

On Sunday we drove up to Kay and Jimmy’s place to visit and to go to the Bok Tower Gardens with them.

Shown in thir backyard, Kay and Jimmy have a great place in a 55+ community in Winter Haven. They are members of the Bok Tower Gardens, which were built in the ‘20’s by the founder of the Ladies Home Journal, Edward Bok. The gardens occupy 60 acres and include the impressive 200 foot tall Bok Tower. 

A walk through the gardens is a relaxing, enjoyable experience filled with a lot of good photo opportunities.

Air Plants:

Imagine our surprise a few days later when we learned that Anne’s parents visited the Bok Gardens on their honeymoon 66 years ago! Maybe it has some magical marriage powers?

While we enjoyed Highlands Hammock a lot, we thought we might cut our two week stay down to one, and so we moved to a spot just north of the Treasure Coast – the stretch of coast along the Atlantic south of Cape Canaveral by Fort Pierce and Port St Lucie. 

Arriving in a commercial campground in Malabar, Fl., the Enchanted Lakes is about 3 miles from the Atlantic. No comparison to the previous State Parks, the campground nevertheless has all the amenities we need. It is largely populated by people who winter in Florida, but has many long term residents and a few transients like us.

One of the first things we did is go for Valentines Day lunch at a local seafood restaurant. The Lobster roll was especially good!

After lunch we had a nice walk at the Turkey Creek park in Palm Bay where you can have your names etched in the walkways, if you like.

Next day we drove down the barrier island road, A1A, for about 25 miles. While there is a lot of beach access, you cannot see much of the ocean because of the many homes and resorts along both sides of the road. A little disappointing.

Arriving at Sebastian Inlet State Park, we wanted to see the McLarty Treasure Museum. It mostly houses artifacts and replicas from a 1715 hurricane that destroyed 11 or 12 Spanish galleons on their way home with much booty from the new world. More than 1000 people perished in the accident, but about 1500 survived; and they set about recovering a good deal of the treasure.

McClarty had a nice walkway to the ocean with great views!

A few 1715 artifacts were discovered in the ‘20’s and ‘40’s, but a hurricane in the mid ‘50’s changed the coast line considerably and paved the way for more major finds by salvor Kip Wagner. Later, Mel Fischer, who in 1986 discovered the fabulous treasure from the Atocha off of Key West, joined Wagner to search for loot. Fischer also has a museum near McClarty with many original artifacts.

One of the big highlights of the Fischer museum for us was the 5 pound solid gold bar (worth about $150,000 at today’s prices) that you could hold in your hand. Don’t get excited, though, because its behind 4 inches of plexiglass with only a cutout for your hand.

People still look for treasure along the coast, and in 2010, a Fort Pierce woman with her 87 year old mom found a small ornate gold bird statue valued at $885,000; it was only 1000 feet offshore.

Coming to the end of our week on the Treasure Coast, we twice spent an interesting hour on the beach waiting for an Atlas rocket to launch from Cape Kennedy. It never did launch, because of weather, but we met some interesting people, while waiting for the event. Its scheduled to launch next Wednesday.

Pretty soon its on to the Orlando......