Austin Celestine
by Greg Sullivan
As any rockhound worth his or her salt can attest, the best finds always happen when you are about to leave. Having spent the day canvassing the collecting localities in Travis County, my brother Ian and I were proud. We had actually found the elusive pockets our hours of internet research had indicated were present. Our finds were small, but still we had a modest ball cap full of tiny crystal-speckled specimens from several pockets. “It could be worse” I remember saying to my brother. “Yes, they could be bigger and blue”, he sniped sarcastically back at me. We both laughed and gathered our stuff to wind things down. “Well, shall we go back to the first pocket we skipped before leaving?” I nodded in agreement.
We had left a small pocket earlier due to a lack of proper toolage and were finally prepared with a rock hammer, having just stopped back at the car. Until this point, we had survived off the leverage capabilities of just a single screwdriver – not one of our finer preparation days. We started to walk over. Nearing the pocket, we began casing the tailings. Suddenly my brother dropped to his knees. “Whatcha got there?” I inquired. He held up a 3″ point of stunning, blue-tipped Celestine that was by far the best find of the day – so far!
“Nothing”, he shot back coyly. And after a few expletives of joy, we both ‘reluctantly’ agreed to look around. After following a few pieces of float we had found it – The Coconut.
Full of mud and measuring 5.5″ by 4.5″ across, it stared back at us with a blue snaggle-toothed grin. More expletives! “Well – I guess we’ll have to stay now”, I said – it was nearing dark. Over the next 4 hours we took turns with what tools we had (screwdriver and rock hammer), chiseling around the geode. 3 hours later and with much blood sacrifice, we had worked our way completely around it. It was time! We began a high angle wedge on both sides of the piece and slowly worked the piece until both fractures connected. Lifting slowly, we brought the piece out. It was intact! “How the hell did we get so lucky?” my brother exclaimed. “I don’t know, but are you ready to do it again?” We both looked in. There was a second, even bigger pocket staring back!
Second Pocket
Unfortunately, we were out of time and so we made plans to return. This time we would have the proper tools (i.e. hammer drill).
After we returned, with much effort and a similar high angle wedge approach, we were able to extract the second pocket.
This one measured an even more impressive 7″x 7″ x 5″ deep. “Well,” I said “Glad we stayed later”!
“Better luck next time” he replied. We both laughed. We will remember this trip for years!
Note: That tool in the upper right of the extraction picture is the hammer drill, which differs from a regular drill in that you can also hammer the chuck forward into hard materials like stone, brick or concrete, so it both drills and hammers.