Season 9 of The Curse of Oak Island is starting to get exciting.

In the episode tonight they finished bringing in the equipment to starting sinking the large shafts.

Tonight they shared footage of a visit by the Nova Scotia Premier.

They are hoping that his visit can help resolve some of the issues they are having with getting permission to dig.

The Premier visited the Money Pit area not too long before the final equipment arrived.

The last major piece of equipment to arrive was the very large oscillator that will drive the large cans down into the ground.

The team signed the first segment of the shaft casing and the oscillating was started soon after.

Some more metal detecting was shown, and some more finds were made near where the lead bag seal was found.

The digging in the swamp finally came to an end as they need to refill the swamp to use the water for the wash plant. However, not before they were able to find some more worked wood and some large wooden stakes.

They finally shared some information about the lead bag seal. There was some great information about the composition of the lead used in the seal. However, it would have been good to hear from someone who had greater knowledge of bag seals from a historical standpoint and how to decipher the markings.

I am of course not an expert, but I know that there is normally information on the seal that shows what type of cloth would have been in the bale and who and where it was manufactured. The only markings that were really looked at were a ‘T’ and an ‘E’ and the opinion given was that it stood for Treasury of England. This definitely goes counter to some of the research that has been done by fans of the show. A bag seal would not show the owner of a bale of cloth, but rather the maker.

This information was then tied to the recent theory that recovered treasure from the Caribbean was brought to Oak Island. I really could not see the connection.

The preview for the next episode shows the oscillator working away and the hammer grab pulling pieces of wood from the shaft. There is also some excitement as they start to look through the spoils.

One thing to remember as you watch the show is that this is not a live show, but rather they are building a narrative based off of a season of filming. They are building suspense and also background so that the story comes together and helps explain the work on the island.

Steven