Sometimes the search for treasure can put blinders on the detectorists' hunting it, and mostly without you even realizing it. I know, I have run up against this time and time again while treasure hunting. My old friend Ed Pfau, now detecting the great beyond, having passed many years ago, used to say "Don't miss the forest for the trees!" We were both enthusiastic about the hobby of metal detecting while treasure hunting back in the 1970's and 1980's and were well-traveled about the state of Florida while seeking it. I still retained my pilot's license back then, before diabetes clipped my wings permanently. Living in Broward County, but loving the history of Florida's west coast, many weekends we would load the detectors, coolers, and gear into the baggage compartment of my plane, and head for the islands of Lee County; Sanibel and Captiva were our usual destinations.
These islands both had small, grass (read "sand") fields which with our rather light load, we could just make it in and barely make it out! The Sanibel strip actually crossed a paved road, with automatic barriers that would drop and stop traffic by keying your aircraft radio on a specific frequency long enough for you to land, or takeoff. We were usually looking for treasure on Captiva island, and most usually at Blind Pass, as it was always sanded in and easily accessed. We had it on "good" authority, that pirate treasure had been buried along the banks of this pass, and we spent a lot of time searching for it. On the Captiva side of the pass was a small beach called Turner Beach, which was a nice little spot, but we rarely even found clad coins there, let alone much else. There was a small bath-house/restroom/changing room up on wooden stilts, maybe 3-feet off the ground.
Passing by it or being a little too close, brought a slightly unpleasant, acrid smell, you usually found about public restrooms of the minimal maintenance/rarely cleaned kind. The floor of the bath-house consisted of 4x6 lumber with a 1/4 to 1/2 inch gap between the boards, letting shower water, as well as even more unpleasant fluids and substances escape down onto the damp, weed-covered ground directly under the structure. We were not impressed and did our best to steer clear of this disgusting little bath-house. We spent many more trips on the opposite side of Turner Beach, hunting treasure in the sandy regions of Blind Pass. I was in my office at work back in Broward County one afternoon when Ed came in and tossed a copy of the day's newspaper on my desk. He had circled an article with a black magic marker. The reporter wrote about a young guy with a metal detector who had ducked under the bath-house, into the excrement-filled weeds and had recovered almost $17,000 worth of gold and silver jewelry (and this is at 1988 gold prices!) along with clusters of high-grade diamonds the bling had contained. I looked at Ed and he looked at me. He said "I STILL would not have hunted under there, even if I'd known!" We both laughed until we couldn't laugh any more!
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