A very late trip report, but since most of us here in the
east our slowly learning the ways of the Eskimo, at least I can provide some
reading material to pass the time. It
always helps when I am a little long winded.
My apologies to Eric and Greg since one, I have taken so long to get
these out, and two I probably won’t remember all the details. But here goes:
This takes place in August of 2009. Me and my friend Eric came down from New York
and were invited by my good friend Greg to stay at his house and fossil hunt
for a couple days. Greg was an awesome
host and he has a wonderful family and home.
We got in really late from New York driving down to Northern VA due to
we stopped at St. Claire Pa with instructions from Brad (AKA Brachiomyback) to
collect some fossil fern imprints at a few sites. Well using his trip report photos and
directions from locals to find the landmarks we arrived and spent a few hours
chipping away at the shale and found many many broken specimens. I apologize for not taking any photos but I
left them all at my parents house which I am slowly turning into a museum!
We visited with Greg and his family for a little while and
got to bed because we would be up early to get the boat hooked up and be on our
way to Calvert Cliffs! I don’t even have
to explain how excited I was I don’t think I slept at all last night. I have read every trip report for the cliffs
and thoughts of wonderful shark teeth and fossils ran through my mind all
night!
Morning finally arrived and we were on our way. After getting to a boat launching site which
was a lot of fun from the get-go we were on our way. An absolutely beautiful day, hardly a cloud
in the sky, sunny, warm and all we had to do was get out far enough in the
water and cruise along!
At the first spot we stopped I realized what was in store
for me. This was something entirely
different then screening, or wandering the beach at camp Lejeune, or the
PCS. I had no idea what to look
for. There was shells, sand, cliffs,
rocks, wood and piles of dirt everywhere.
So I did what I figured was best, and after Greg went one way, and Eric
stayed in the middle, I started walking the other way, looking high and low,
along the cliffs, in the piles of dirt, in the surf and on the beach. Nothing.
I didn’t see a thing. Was it just
me, was I blind? What was I looking
for. Well I felt a little better when
Eric hadn’t found anything either but Greg started finding little teeth right
away.
I decided to go with what I knew best, screening. So I waded back out to the tied up boat,
grabbed my shovel and screen and started scooping up sand and shells that were
in the surf. Eric did the same thing
and on my first screen, surprise, a big Hemi lower with a broken root
lobe! Well it was a start! I continued with the screening and found
nothing. Nothing else.
We continued searching and moving to different spots along
the cliffs and slowly but surely we all started finding more and more little
teeth. Even if the teeth were small it
was still a great day to be out. I was
thoroughly enjoying just being out in
the warm sunshine, the water was warm, it was a new place. Just a great day to be out. We would stop every so often, drink down some
water, eat some snacks and keep going.
Towards the end of the day and when we got to the farthest
of our travels south did we start finding some larger teeth. Greg found the first big tooth being a pretty
nice lower Mako! It was complete and
perfect and got us all motivated to start at the ground and continue our search. I got into a really rocky area and decided I
was probably walking to fast so I slowed waaayyy down and started looking in
between the rocks in the cracks and in the little pools of water the waves left
behind and before I knew it I saw my first big tooth. A Mako.
A really nice upper. From what I
could tell it was complete. I reached down
to pick it up and as soon as I touched it realized those rocks had other
ideas. The tooth was completely wedged
in. Well I wasn’t about to break the
tooth by pulling on it so I carefully wiggled it and pushed on the big rocks
until it popped out into my hand!
SUCCESS. Except for a tiny chip
in the blade I was perfect and very colorful!
My first Calvert Mako!
I wandered up and down that spot hoping for my second big
tooth and spent a good hour there with nothing else to show for it so I went
back to show off my new prize. Upon
finding Eric who gave me a dirty look due to his bad luck, I felt bad for him
since it was only his third time ever looking for shark teeth so he was having
a terrible time and only managed a few small teeth. I then caught up to Greg who was picking up
his own Upper Mako as well.
By then the sun was setting and it was time to hope that we
had enough fuel left to make it back.
What a day, I can wait to get back there. I think I need to spend a week there
though. But I think I will wait until
after a big storm! But I will never
complain about a day finding teeth with great weather, great friends and a nice
tooth to boot!