In the wake of Hurricane Ike, there's a good chance Bart Michelini, Brian Anthony and a few other bottle hunters will be scouring Florida Keys beaches.
The Upper Keys residents are regular "swamp trompers," free-thinking adventurers who slog through the muck and mangrove tangles along the Florida Keys' ocean-facing barrier islands and scour the hardwood uplands where old homes and farms stood 100 years ago.
Their goal is treasure -- in the form of bottles.
Michelini, a Jewfish Road resident, stumbled into his bottle-collectiong hobby a few years ago.
"You go after a storm, like treasure hunting. It exposes the bottles that have been buried," he said. "I haven't started to dig yet because the pickings have been so good. I've found some good ones, some old ones made before 1800. I've been looking harder now that they are increasing in value."