I took off last Friday evening arriving at VA Beach around 2000 and detected until about 0830 Saturday morning. Just getting away on my own at the beach was just great.
I started the hunt on dry sand between 4th and 6th street. This is where the previous weekend they held some significant activities.
Well, I still haven't found a significant gold piece yet, but I'm liking my 3030 (using 11" coil) more and more each trip.
The first few hours I found what felt like 100's of aluminum can flip tops. No cans or any other trash, only the flip tops. They all rang in at a nice sounding 12-15. I wondered if this was metal detectorist sabotage.
Findings included $3.75 of quarters, another couple dollars of nickels, dimes and pennys. Only about 15 pennys, so not enough to think someone sprinkled these around for our (metal detectorist) enjoyment. 2 Matchbox cars, hairpin, wire rim sunglasses, and an Ironman watch that was beat to death.
3030 and equipment comments:
-I had the detector on continuously for about 11 hours using the wireless module (even though I was in the surf during low tide). I did start getting some flakey readings during the last half hour. I think that was the detector batteries finally running down, but my "batteries" were also spent. Otherwise, the detector worked great and held a charge much longer than what I would expect (both batteries...detector battery and module battery).
-I used the Pro Swing 45 harness, which there is no way I could have done this without the extra support.
-"Seawater" setting really works! I use an "adjusted" beach mode setting where I previously turned off the "Seawater" for some dry land hunting. Around the water I started getting many beeps and squeeks until I realized I forgot to return the Seawater to "on". After turning it on, the beeps and squeeks went away; only the real signals came through.
-The wire rim glasses rang in at a loud, constant 12-07, and 12" deep. This was a tough one to recover. I stuck with it for about 30 minutes trying to dig in the surf. The sand would fill in every wave. So I stuck with it until I finally recovered the glasses.
-Every bottle cap gave the indication of jumping all over the screen. I could tell it was a bottle cap before digging it; but I dug it anyway just to prove to myself what it was.
-During this trip I decided to dig many of the "bad area" indications, across the bottom of the screen. Every one of these proved to be screws, hooks, bolts, and just plain junk.
Beach detecting comments:
-When wet-sand hunting, the trash encountered is very low. So I adjusted my beach settings to "low trash" and "recovery deep". When detecting for many minutes without a single sound makes you wonder if the detector is working. I used my scoop to do an occasional check. When you finally hit something, there is no mistake! The beep is loud, steady, and clear.
-I found most of the quarters at low tide close to the surf, as well as the watch, and hairpin. So seems like near the surf, during low tide in this case, was where the heavier things settled. Must be some nice stuff in this region.
-I was surprized to find coins and stuff in the dry sand where the sifter tractor already passed.
Well nothing too exciting; just sharing some info. and still hoping to find that chunk of gold.
Mike
I started the hunt on dry sand between 4th and 6th street. This is where the previous weekend they held some significant activities.
Well, I still haven't found a significant gold piece yet, but I'm liking my 3030 (using 11" coil) more and more each trip.
The first few hours I found what felt like 100's of aluminum can flip tops. No cans or any other trash, only the flip tops. They all rang in at a nice sounding 12-15. I wondered if this was metal detectorist sabotage.
Findings included $3.75 of quarters, another couple dollars of nickels, dimes and pennys. Only about 15 pennys, so not enough to think someone sprinkled these around for our (metal detectorist) enjoyment. 2 Matchbox cars, hairpin, wire rim sunglasses, and an Ironman watch that was beat to death.
3030 and equipment comments:
-I had the detector on continuously for about 11 hours using the wireless module (even though I was in the surf during low tide). I did start getting some flakey readings during the last half hour. I think that was the detector batteries finally running down, but my "batteries" were also spent. Otherwise, the detector worked great and held a charge much longer than what I would expect (both batteries...detector battery and module battery).
-I used the Pro Swing 45 harness, which there is no way I could have done this without the extra support.
-"Seawater" setting really works! I use an "adjusted" beach mode setting where I previously turned off the "Seawater" for some dry land hunting. Around the water I started getting many beeps and squeeks until I realized I forgot to return the Seawater to "on". After turning it on, the beeps and squeeks went away; only the real signals came through.
-The wire rim glasses rang in at a loud, constant 12-07, and 12" deep. This was a tough one to recover. I stuck with it for about 30 minutes trying to dig in the surf. The sand would fill in every wave. So I stuck with it until I finally recovered the glasses.
-Every bottle cap gave the indication of jumping all over the screen. I could tell it was a bottle cap before digging it; but I dug it anyway just to prove to myself what it was.
-During this trip I decided to dig many of the "bad area" indications, across the bottom of the screen. Every one of these proved to be screws, hooks, bolts, and just plain junk.
Beach detecting comments:
-When wet-sand hunting, the trash encountered is very low. So I adjusted my beach settings to "low trash" and "recovery deep". When detecting for many minutes without a single sound makes you wonder if the detector is working. I used my scoop to do an occasional check. When you finally hit something, there is no mistake! The beep is loud, steady, and clear.
-I found most of the quarters at low tide close to the surf, as well as the watch, and hairpin. So seems like near the surf, during low tide in this case, was where the heavier things settled. Must be some nice stuff in this region.
-I was surprized to find coins and stuff in the dry sand where the sifter tractor already passed.
Well nothing too exciting; just sharing some info. and still hoping to find that chunk of gold.
Mike