Severe beach erosion from two late-season hurricanes has helped uncover what appears to be a wooden ship dating from the 1800s which had been buried under the sand on Florida’s East Coast for up to two centuries, impervious to cars that drove daily on the beach or sand castles built by generations of tourists.

Beachgoers and lifeguards discovered the wooden structure, between 80 feet to 100 feet (24 meters to 30.5 meters), poking out of the sand over Thanksgiving weekend in front of homes that collapsed into rubble on Daytona Beach Shores last month from Hurricane Nicole.

Hurricane Ian made landfall in late September on Florida’s southwest coast and exited into the Atlantic Ocean over central Florida. Nicole devastated much of Volusia County’s coastline in early November, leaving behind homes that collapsed into the ocean after they had been made vulnerable to erosion from Ian.