CruiseAndHunt
New member
Well, after weeks of bottle caps, pull tabs and other assorted junk, I finally hit a decent day! Today was my first outing on Royal Caribbean's private resort destination, Labadee, a peninsula on the north coast of Haiti. (see below)
I concentrated on the beach sand just off the concrete paths, thinking that it would be a common place for stuff to fall out of pockets. Plus, I didn't want to look pushy/sneaky in front of our guests by getting too close to the sun loungers. I'm still using all-metal mode, while I continue to get comfortable with the array of tones and signals.
I hunted for about 2 hours (out for about 4hours total), and came up with what you see in the picture. 2 quarters (one a 1965), 4 nickels (one a 1960), 2 pennies and a dime. The big find came about 90 minutes in, a 22" silver chain, maybe 4grams weight (i don't have a pocket scale yet. i'll take it over to the jewellery shop after we sail today... 925 silver markings and and a jeweller's mark MBS in a rectangle, made in Italy. It registered on the 5c notch, showing a depth of 4", but was actually closer to 8" down. Nothing too outrageous, but definitely the best day I've had since I started hitting the beaches here in the Caribbean. Junk finds from today included about 20 bottle caps, an L-shaped hunk of rebar about 6" long, and some copper wire bits.
next time we're back (in two weeks) i'll probably work the waterline/tideline or try a different beach (there's 5) unless I can get under the roller coaster loops/helix.
My kit: Garrett Treasure Ace 250 w/stock coil & Garrett headphones, sand/water scoop, digging trowel, 6 pocket carpenters pouch and two pocket apron.
Totals since buying my GTA250: $1.37USD, 1 silver chain, one Eastern Caribbean 5cent piece.
Was a great day. Lots of curious looky-loos, spent about as much time yakking as I did hunting. While most were curious about the hobby, a few were curious about why Royal Caribbean and Celebrity (the cruise line i work for) were even still going to Labadee, what with the disaster having occurred there recently. At the risk of boring you all, and maybe getting a bit preachy, I'll lay it out.
The executives in Miami came to the decision that to bypass Labadee (5 ships calling here this week) would only hurt an already fragile economy. Some 200 Haitians work at Labadee, operating the roller coaster, the zipline, maintaining the beaches and dining areas, operating the shore excursions and tours, as well as the private security force that guard the one land-side entrance to the resort, and patrols the fence. If we don't come to Labadee, all these people make no money, except for the security guys. Local handicrafts and foods, the musicians, etc, they would all suffer from us not comign to Labadee. We were specifically asked by the government of Haiti to not bypass the resort, as it is one of the few money making prospects going right now. Also, all the revenue from today's visit (shore excursion sales, bar sales, ship souvenir sales) will be donated to the relief effort. When our Captain greeted our guests at our first formal night "Captains' Welcome" and told them of our mission statement as regards Haiti, he was given a thunderous standing ovation, so despite the cruise industry being trashed in the online media, our 3000 guests seemed to be 100% behind the decision to support our Haitian friends and partners. We had guests going ashore in San Juan, St Maarten and Tortola, and bringing back bagfulls of t-shirts, sandals, underwear, socks, blankets, towels, to donate to the relief effort.
In addition, every Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ship that visits Labadee this week is being loaded with as much relief supply goods as we can fit on the cargo deck. My ship brought just under 40 pallets (that's a shipping stack 4ft x 4ft x 6ft tall) of water, food, blankets, medical supplies, folding rollaway beds, and more. The crew donated 2 pallets of clothing, and we're not sure how much cash at this point, it's still coming in, but we're close to $10000 so far in just one week. Our guests have been very generous as well. Royal Caribbean has said it will match crew and guest donations dollar-for-dollar, in addition to the $1M they have already promised (which they expect to probably double in the next week or so). The other 4 ships this week will bring our contribution to close to 500 pallets of relief supplies. Some of these goods are earmarked to help the people local to Labadee, but the majority will end up in Port-Au-Prince.
I concentrated on the beach sand just off the concrete paths, thinking that it would be a common place for stuff to fall out of pockets. Plus, I didn't want to look pushy/sneaky in front of our guests by getting too close to the sun loungers. I'm still using all-metal mode, while I continue to get comfortable with the array of tones and signals.
I hunted for about 2 hours (out for about 4hours total), and came up with what you see in the picture. 2 quarters (one a 1965), 4 nickels (one a 1960), 2 pennies and a dime. The big find came about 90 minutes in, a 22" silver chain, maybe 4grams weight (i don't have a pocket scale yet. i'll take it over to the jewellery shop after we sail today... 925 silver markings and and a jeweller's mark MBS in a rectangle, made in Italy. It registered on the 5c notch, showing a depth of 4", but was actually closer to 8" down. Nothing too outrageous, but definitely the best day I've had since I started hitting the beaches here in the Caribbean. Junk finds from today included about 20 bottle caps, an L-shaped hunk of rebar about 6" long, and some copper wire bits.
next time we're back (in two weeks) i'll probably work the waterline/tideline or try a different beach (there's 5) unless I can get under the roller coaster loops/helix.
My kit: Garrett Treasure Ace 250 w/stock coil & Garrett headphones, sand/water scoop, digging trowel, 6 pocket carpenters pouch and two pocket apron.
Totals since buying my GTA250: $1.37USD, 1 silver chain, one Eastern Caribbean 5cent piece.
Was a great day. Lots of curious looky-loos, spent about as much time yakking as I did hunting. While most were curious about the hobby, a few were curious about why Royal Caribbean and Celebrity (the cruise line i work for) were even still going to Labadee, what with the disaster having occurred there recently. At the risk of boring you all, and maybe getting a bit preachy, I'll lay it out.
The executives in Miami came to the decision that to bypass Labadee (5 ships calling here this week) would only hurt an already fragile economy. Some 200 Haitians work at Labadee, operating the roller coaster, the zipline, maintaining the beaches and dining areas, operating the shore excursions and tours, as well as the private security force that guard the one land-side entrance to the resort, and patrols the fence. If we don't come to Labadee, all these people make no money, except for the security guys. Local handicrafts and foods, the musicians, etc, they would all suffer from us not comign to Labadee. We were specifically asked by the government of Haiti to not bypass the resort, as it is one of the few money making prospects going right now. Also, all the revenue from today's visit (shore excursion sales, bar sales, ship souvenir sales) will be donated to the relief effort. When our Captain greeted our guests at our first formal night "Captains' Welcome" and told them of our mission statement as regards Haiti, he was given a thunderous standing ovation, so despite the cruise industry being trashed in the online media, our 3000 guests seemed to be 100% behind the decision to support our Haitian friends and partners. We had guests going ashore in San Juan, St Maarten and Tortola, and bringing back bagfulls of t-shirts, sandals, underwear, socks, blankets, towels, to donate to the relief effort.
In addition, every Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ship that visits Labadee this week is being loaded with as much relief supply goods as we can fit on the cargo deck. My ship brought just under 40 pallets (that's a shipping stack 4ft x 4ft x 6ft tall) of water, food, blankets, medical supplies, folding rollaway beds, and more. The crew donated 2 pallets of clothing, and we're not sure how much cash at this point, it's still coming in, but we're close to $10000 so far in just one week. Our guests have been very generous as well. Royal Caribbean has said it will match crew and guest donations dollar-for-dollar, in addition to the $1M they have already promised (which they expect to probably double in the next week or so). The other 4 ships this week will bring our contribution to close to 500 pallets of relief supplies. Some of these goods are earmarked to help the people local to Labadee, but the majority will end up in Port-Au-Prince.
you should be proud....
Happy Hunting!