I don’t have a lot to say, but I feel like I should say something. They’ve been finding a lot of odd stuff on Oak Island, much of it older than the Money Pit and some of it much, much older, but still no pay dirt.
Will they ever get it? Is it possible to forecast something at this point?
I sense that we can.
Here’s why. At the start of the season I was stoked from the end of last season. The ship shaped object under the swamp seemed to be a for sure thing, but now we are headed into Episode 15, and the ship shaped thing is anything but sure. So, even though they are finding intriguing stuff, I’m a bit underwhelmed.
Ship shaped anomaly in the swamp has not yet materialized.
But still hopeful. I have several gauges to base that on.
The first gauge is the stacking up of items found here and there about the island that have been positively dated to the pre-Money Pit era. A bunch of these items have been dated to the first half of the eighteenth century. The latest and probably the most significant is the wrought iron ship’s mast brace found in the last episode. Importantly, it shows signs of having endured a “fierce fire.” Along with it are several other items from that time period, including the wooden slipway and the iron swages, plus a load of wrought iron spikes.
Swages, or drill bit sharpening tools from the 1600-1700s, maybe earlier.
Then in the same episode we are told that a timber from the Money Pit area dates to the early 1600s. Of course, for some time we’ve had the lead cross that might go back even further. Summed together, it appears there might have been more than one significant event on Oak Island, with one caveat, and that is as William Shatner said, “Just because (the lead cross) was made in 1400, doesn’t mean that it was dropped on Oak Island that early. Indeed, it could have been dropped there in the early 1700s, although one would have to explain why someone would be carrying around an object that old. I suppose an object could have been dropped last week by scammers, although I can’t see anyone going to that level of deception to fool the Laginas and the general public.
We also now have a conflict of scientific opinion in the swamp as well. That being the estimate by the geophysicist, Dr. Spooner, that the swamp was built by people around 1200. The other being that the ship’s mast brace was from an eighteenth century ship, and we suppose that the stone walkway in the bottom of the swamp was constructed about the same time as the ship burning. There is the conflict: Swamp built in the 1200s, yet in the 1700s the area was dry enough to lay down the stone “walkway.” One could suppose that the 1700s people drained it, laid down the walkway, and burned a ship there. That leaves us with many possibilities regarding the 1200 date, including the one that that date is wrong.
Currently the Laginas are planning to continue to uncover the rocky road to see if it extends to the “Swamp Eye.” This is making a run for it, so to speak. I would also suggest that they take some core samples near where the mast support was found to see if they encounter a layer of charred wood, i.e. the burned ship remains.
The burnt ship in the first half of the eighteenth century matches nicely to two theories: The defeated French with their New World war chest fleeing the Brits, or pirates hiding treasure. However, if one is fleeing or hiding from an advisory it would be ill advised to build a giant fire. We’ve all seen those survival shows where they build a fire to attract rescue. The fire diminishes the fleeing French theory. My understanding of pirates was that they generally liked to use captured boats rather than burn them. However, if the boat were badly damaged, they probably would burn it, if no one were around to see the fire. At this point for the 1700s event, I would say advantage pirates.
Now we also have wood at the Money Pit dated to the 1600s, and there were those bone fragments from the same period. This indicates that maybe there was activity in the 1600s as well. There are also the mining tools, which indicate someone spent a lot of time on the island, and was seemingly not in fear of being discovered. The Laginas next step in the Money Pit area is to grind in a 8 foot diameter casing on the current projected Money Pit location.
Smith Cove after the storm. Consider that the surface of the water is level and the various structures appear to all protrude roughly the same amount, leading me to think they are all part of a docking substructure. It would be nice to know where the shoreline was in the early 1700s.
Lastly, there is the wooden box structure in Smith’s Cove, that collapsed while being uncovered. I believe a wood sample has been dated to the early 1700s. To me, the double box-like structure look like piers or pilings that could be filled with rubble and used to moor ships. However, I’m not a marine engineer, but I bet there are some marine engineers who could identify that structure correctly. One caveat that must be kept in mind with those shoreline structures is that the shoreline would have varied from 1200 to now. I think it would be good the mark the shoreline location for each century, or maybe 50 year increments, from the 1200s to now. The geophysicist, Dr. Spooner, should be able to do that.
Lastly, the best clue that something major will happen in the last third of this season is that the intensity of “finds” increased in the last episode. Furthermore, the narrator has spent less time endlessly repeating explanations that were etched into our minds many seasons ago.
I remain hopeful.