Token Found in the OceanI found two of these in the ocean years ago. I don't know if I've posted them before. It seemed like I always intended to but never got very good photos. I guess these photos are as good as I'll get.
I was trying to maintain a low profile while detecting in the water at a swimming beach and a little boy was watching. As soon as I picked one of these out of my scoop the kid yelled at the top of his lungs, "He found a really large treasure coin." I think everyone on the beach for about two miles heard. My low profile was gone.
Many finds, even unspectacular finds have a memorable story that goes with them. I can remember exactly where many things were found years later.
First finds are usually memorable. First ring, first cob, first escudo, etc.
Other Side of Same TokenSome finds have a sensory element. How I could see one diamond sparkling while it was still in my scoop and under three feet of water on a nice sunny day. Or the soft steady signal of a platinum ring.
And sometimes memories are just of the environment, such as the being out in the water during a heavy rain. I couldn't see but a few yards and nothing but the rain coming down, and there was complete silence. Or the time I could see an absolute river of fish through a wave with the sun on the other side. That was amazing. It was like one of those they show on surfing programs looking through the wave, except the wave was filled with fish silhouettes.
Those are memorable times.
I've talked about the splash zone and the back dunes in recent days, now I'll address another zone from the recent survey - the edge of the water. The water's edge was tied with the back dunes as the place where most cobs or treasure coins were found.
When I discuss the zones, keep in mind that coastal beaches in different areas are different. As I've mentioned, the South Florida Beaches are very different from the Treasure Coast beaches in a variety of ways.
It seems that the larger cobs are often found at either the back dunes, for reasons previously discussed, or towards the water's edge. It seems they less often find there way higher on the beach when coming from the water or far from the dunes when coming from the back dunes. That makes sense, although there are a lot of other things that I am more confident about.
A lot of guys don't hunt by the water. I think some of them have trouble with false signals. I think with most detectors that happens more when using discrimination. A lot of the time the detector will give a false signal when you sweep across a previous water line. Of course that depends upon the detector and how well you have selected your settings. Some guys will cut back on sensitivity or make other adjustments. My preference is to simply work in pin-point or all metals mode. You can hear some of the salt water mineralization changes, but you can learn to easily distinguish between that type of thing and an actual target. Another thing that helps if you are having trouble is to sweep north to south along parallel to the water instead of east/west across the water lines.
If you are working at the water's edge, I think you will find it easier to avoid falses if you keep the coil either in the water or out of the water, and avoid sweeping into and out of the water.
Slowing down the sweep speed will also help.
It really shouldn't be a problem if you use all-metals mode and practice a bit.
I also use all-metals mode with no problem in the black sand. You might get signals from the black sand, but with practice you can learn the difference between the sounds caused by black sand and an actual target.
The water's edge is also a good place to eye-ball. The wax seal that I showed one day was found at the water's edge. The water will uncover some things so keep your eyes open.
Of course there will be times when there is a lot of light junk such as aluminum at the water's edge. Look for dips, check out how firm the sand is, maybe dig a few holes to see what is under the sand and do a little sampling.
How far the water's edge is away from cuts or dips in the water is important. When you have a big cut above the water's edge check to see if anything washed down out of the cut or washed out of the water and came to rest in the low spot below the cut.
The front beach will often be good when it is really cut down low. As I've said before, coins on the front beach can come from washing out of the back beach or up out of the water.
Keep an eye on how the sand in front of the beach has been moving.
Here is a nice web site with good information about coins that you might want to take a look at.
http://www.coinsite.com/content/cdanswers/cdarchive11.asp
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
The waves should begin to increase a bit today, but only get up to about three feet. As you probably know, that isn't enough to do much, certainly not improve my beach conditions rating, which has been at a 1 for a long time now.
You might be creative, scout around a bit, and check out the low tide zone. The beach conditions just haven't improved much for a really long time. Surely something will happen someday soon.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
