Life's a Beach - Electronic Beachcombing

My best memories, the candy-colored ones you remember most, are created while metal detecting along Florida's beaches. The morning sunrise, the color of hot coals, coupled with a cool salt breeze off the endless blue-green Atlantic ocean, just a few short hours before low tide; this is my nirvana. Looking north and south, very few people are evident as far as you can see through the morning mist and salt-spray. This bodes well for a few hours of contemplative solitude in searching for the sea's hidden offerings.

Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on my Favorite Beach

The invisible cone of electromagnetic energy, enmeshing the search coil, pulsing and reversing polarities so fast, it approaches magic for anyone without an engineering degree to comprehend. And at the low frequencies it operates, it penetrates wet sand, clay and limestone like a bright light through frosted glass. Modern 21st Century technology has gone one step further in coupling ultra high-speed computer capabilities into the mix, able to examine and analyze the electromagnetic flux to the point that it supplies data that almost reveals what lies hidden below the coil. With practice and experience, it is still your decision to partake or ignore. But ignore certain signals at your peril...there are many items that aim to muddy the water and hide that Spanish gold coin, that heavy silver chain, or that 1- Carat diamond ring. A piece of rusted iron will obliterate the signal of a close proximity silver coin. You never know!

A heavy .925 Italian silver chain I pulled from the clay hard-pan

I detect a historic coast in Florida, not to say all Florida coasts are NOT historic, but this coast yields 19th Century copper sheathing peeled from a long-wrecked schooner, alongside a twisted beryllium copper spacecraft component that made it halfway to orbit before it's booster exploded.

The tops of shell piles poking out of the sand-good omen

The digging is easy, if you have the right tools (I've seen an inexperienced detectorists using a knife, trying to recover a target from wet sand) but persistence is not. Wander down to the local fishing pier on the public beach, and you'll see literally dozens of people with metal detectors, wandering around in circles, almost interfering with each other as they pass each other. Frankly there are no longer enough beach-goers to support the hordes of detectorists convinced they are going to become self-supporting within a few warm afternoons at the beach.

Lone water-hunter looking for treasure with his metal detector

Most good finds are hard-won, gridding a piece of sand miles from the pier and crowded public beach, seeking the right conditions and the right place, and the right time where something good lies. Take a deep bite of sand with your stainless-steel beach scoop and take a look at the sample of material you've removed. Dark grey clay...very little sand. Hard-pan. The bottom of the bottom of the sand all blown away by Hurricane Matthew months before, reveals the stopping point for all lost coins, jewelry and artifacts. Items lost 30 or 40 or even 50 years ago reside here. This is what beach metal detecting is all about...knowing the secrets, understanding the sea, and taking advantage of the right conditions right away before the door closes again in a few days, or a few hours.

A 1942 Wheat Cent recoverd from the clay hard-pan of the beach

A few more hours of this and I'll grab some fish and chips at the pier and watch the ships sail by, before heading home and looking over my treasures.

Some beach finds from the pouch-notice old encrusted coins