Ring Daddy #82,83,84, and 85

I hit the same spot I hit yesterday before I quit. I swear this is the only depression at MB. Gene ran all over and found one silver high school ring. But where I was, there were targets...not a huge number but enough to keep me interested. I got in the water and my detector started making occasional phitttt sounds. This had me really worried but not enough to mess with it. The beach crowd was pretty slim today. I think the MB numbers are way down from past years.

After an hour I get the big wedding band. Alright baby!!! It can only get better from here. Five minutes later I get a foil sound and was not disappointed...it was a very small gold ring. #2. Let's see if there is a number three in here. Two hours later I was still looking for #3, and I was tired and hungry and tired. I was just slogging along when I got a couple of targets and there was dark sand in my scoop. Good sign. The next target was one of those indescript sounds, neither high or low. Bam! #3 Not a great ring but it counts. Then three foot away I get almost the same sound. Bam again!! #4 This ring looks like it has alien eyes.

Here is the mess.

Here are the rings in the order that I found them. I also got a spinner ring.

Rings 84 and 85 are apparently a set...not a very good set but a set nonetheless. They don't fit together very well. Gene thought maybe I was missing a piece. Here they are together.

This was a great day, but I had to be exactly where I was or I would have ended up skunked.

One more photo.

No, one more. It is epoxy time again. I have worn the epoxy all off of one side of my coil. I've got a hell of a backswing.

Oh, when I do this usually I put tape around the outside edge of the coil to act as a dam and then fill it in with Marine Epoxy. Makes a little neater job.

Ring Daddy #81 and another day in the trenches

Headed back to where David Toller and I hunted yesterday. Today it seemed more filled in and I only got one silver ring out of the area. After a couple of hours I see Gene coming down the beach. We talk and he indicates he is still digging coins on the same line we have dug coins for a week. Coins and coins and no gold. Somehow that week of NE wind lined all the coins up about mid beach. I told him I was headed for the South end. I hate moving in mid low tide but I didn't feel confident I was going to get anything where I was. So off I go. When I take a look at the new spot I see....could it be???...somewhat of a hole. I jump in the water and at first things are slow but I start kicking more shells and rocks and suddenly I've got targets. Finally that foil sound comes into the headphones. Is it possible?? Please....please... I shake the shells in the scoop to the side and there is a small silver colored ring. I remember the foil sound so I am confident it is gold. 10K. Alright!!!

Here is the mess. 2 silver rings, $4.23 in change, a non ticking watch and a 1940 wheat penny.

The white gold ring is small, 2 grams.

Well, I know where I will start tomorrow morning.

Ring Daddy #80 and a new water hunter...

David Toller, a resident of MB, is putting together the 2009 Treasure Expo and Trade Show on April 4th and 5th. This morning we got together to plunder the waves. David had never surf hunted and wanted me to show him the finer points of being beat to death in the waves. We hit McDonalds and off we went. I showed him where the free parking was. As we parked the sky was black and looked like it would pour rain any minute. So I didn't put sunscreen on or take my sunglasses. This will always bring the sun out. Off we go into the waves.

David said, "There's something wrong with my detector. It is signaling each wave."

"Yep, PI's will do that. Turn down the sensitivity."

David was reluctant but he did and the wave signals went away.

We waded around for sometime before I found a bottlecap. "Here," I said, "Try to dig this." David had a new scoop. He would get set up and a wave would move him. He finally got some sand out and then some more and then some more and...well you get the idea. His eyes were starting to roll back in his head. "I don't think this surf hunting is for me," he said. He rested a bit and then went at it again. I hunted about an acre and then saw him smile as he pulled out the bottlecap.

Eventually we got into a small zone that ran parallel with the low tide line and started getting some targets. David got a couple of pieces of costume jewelry and some coins and I could tell he was getting much better at retreiving the targets.

I found a silver ring and he seemed impressed. Then he dug a mood ring at about a foot. His first ring in the surf. Then I found a silver ear ring and then I got the gold ring.

Here is my mess. Not a lot of targets but at least one gold ring showed up. Oh yeah, I got a Canadian dollar coin. That helped my coin total.

The can was at 32 scoops down.....well maybe not that deep, but close.

The sun finally retreated behind some dark clouds and it began to rain.

David said, "It's raining, I don't want to get wet."

I am always thankful when a gold ring shows in the scoop.

David kind of summed it up as he limped back the car, "It's a lot more work but a lot more rewarding."

"What's wrong with your foot?"

"I cut it with my scoop."

"Usually when I do that the sharks come, so I get out of the water."

"I didn't realize I did it till we got out of the water."

I said, "Well you really didn't get a good day. Most days you get jellyfish stung and and smashed into the bottom." I'm not sure if he realized I was serious.

Here is a link to the 2009 Treasure Expo and Trade Show in Myrtle Beach

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,166512.0.html

Also, David said he hoped to have his website up and running in a couple of days.

http://www.treasureexpo.com/

Ring Daddy #79 and too many pennies!!

Well the NE winds continue to blow...and move sand around...but not necessarily for the better. Last night I found a spot with targets just above the low tide line and found a mess of coins and one titanium ring. At 4:35 this morning I was back at it. Coins in the same area. Coins and coins and coins and finally one silver ring. After two and a half hours of digging coins, mostly pennies I needed a change. There was a shallow trough I hit last night and decided to hunt just above it. At last a gold ring. This one was one of the deepest gold rings I have found with a Minelab. I was real surprised when it rolled out of the sand. Not a particularly big ring either. $5.85 in change. One James Monroe dollar coin. That is the second one I've found this year. 45 pennies.

113 targets retrieved this morning before breakfast. I am going to estimate that I have found over three hundred targets since I found the gold rings on Thursday morning. Do we earn our gold or what!!

I did check the water this morning. It was definitely colder than a few days ago. There was still way too much current running down the beach to hunt it. Most of the surf area was mushy but I did drop into a hole, chin deep, that was smooth and immediately got a target but the current made it impossible to retrieve. There has got to be some holes out there after all this wind.

Ring Daddy # 77 and 78....Thanks Fay

Thanks Fay for eroding the top of the beach and pulling all the sand down and covering up the lower beach and the surf area. I really do not like hunting the top of the beach. Usually I find a million coins and after I have fallen down from exhuaustion digging coins I go to the house. I hate the upper beach. I'm talking the upper wet beach, not the dry sand area. At 4:30 AM I was on the beach with an old Sov. It didn't want to work and after messing with it for 45 minutes I took it back to the house and got the Excaliber with the little, itty bitty, 7-1/4" coil. I hate swinging this on the beach because it has no coverage. So I am in an ill mood. Foul mood. Don't get in my way mood. My first target back is a low tone. Grumble, rotten, no good...grumble...what the heck?!! It's a gold ring!! I can't believe it. No way!! I'm digging coins and soon I get another low tone. Maybe. Yep, it is. I can't see it because the sun is not up yet but it looks nice.

Here is the mess from the "I hate the upper beach" hunt. $5.93 and two gold rings.

Here is the first gold ring. 10K 1.4 grams

Here is the second. It's a looker. 14K 3 grams

Ring Daddy #76....The Mother of all Diamond Rings!!

Today was overcast and low 80's with some north wind. Great day to be on the beach. Another two weeks and the tourons will be gone, the kids will be back in school. It is with mixed feelings that I think about this as I swing down the beach. Where I started today I found a few targets and as I got further down the beach it flattened out and I went a good half mile without a signal. So I head back the way I came. I tried the surf here and there but there were no holes and without a hole...you might as well be swinging the sanded in beach. When I got back to where I started a few more signals started to wake me up. I grid intensely when it is like this. On one of the passes towards the top of the beach I got a small signal, a low sound. After two good scoops the gold ring came out. I grabbed it and put it quickly in my pouch. When I get to the water I wash it off. It can't be. There is no way....maybe....maybe...it's heavy enough. Here is a pic of all the stuff. Two silver rings and a few other trinkets and the Mother of all Diamond Rings!!

I am almost scared to think that it might be real. When I got home I could read the 14K but I needed to have the diamond tested.

The lady at Reeds Jewelers just smiled and I knew...I knew the truth...She poked all three diamonds without so much as a budge from the tester.

Oh well, there went my new car and paying for my daughters college education.

Ring Daddy #75....a beach find.

Rain and rain and rain. Today the wind was out of the NE, fairly hard, bringing on some whitecaps and fair size waves. The jellyfish flags were flying at the lifeguard stands and the lifeguards had taken refuge in the boxes...The boxes are for storing all the chairs and umbrellas and misc. lifeguard stuff. But today they also held the lifeguards. They have an opening on the front so they can look out at the empty beach and ocean. A good steady rain with increasing rain falling back to steady kept everyone off the beach except for some whacko with a metal detector. I decided to swing the beach today, I just wasn't in the mood to get beat up in the surf. I headed down the beach with gray enthusiasm to match the gray day. I detect the beach as last resort. Oh well, here's a few coins and some pulltabs and...I scoop out a signal and there laying just visible is my gold ring. Alrighty!!! Now I have reved up enthusiasm. After about 3/4 of a mile I run out of targets and head back. I keep wandering down to the low tide line and finally a wave bangs my scoop into my Achilles tendon. Dadgum, that smarts. I decide to rename my scoop the ATC....Achilles Tendon Cutter. Halfway back I get a nickel signal and out pops a nickel. Then there is a nickel signal next to that one. Two scoops later and I think I have gold ring #2 for the day. I am a happy camper!! Here is the mess.

Ah, but something is amiss. I have this nagging doubt about #2. It just doesn't feel right.

After riding my bike home I grab the magnifying glass. Yep, Titanium. Grrr.

Here is the Real McCoy!!

Ring Daddy 73 and 74 and going thru withdrawl...

OK...it doesn't work. Once again I beat the odds badly. I really doesn't make sense. I am not finding a good hole or a lot of targets and yet somehow I got my coil over two gold rings. Oh well, I'll take em.

I am going through withdrawl. I did not get jellyfish stung yesterday or today. Where's the tentacle venom when you need it? Maybe tomorrow I will get stung and get back into the swing of things.

Some of these targets came off the beach. I was quite a ways from my bicycle when I quit the water scene. Swinging the beach with my 8" coil makes me feel inadequate. Especially when most guys are swinging 10"ers and some are even swinging 12"ers. There is a rumor of a guy or two having 15"ers but I would think that would scare most folks. Actually mine only measures 7-1/4".

But the 7-1/4" went over the second gold ring of the day on the beach. This is only the second gold ring I have found on the beach this year. All of the others were found in the water. 54 targets retrieved. $2.32

I really hate not having a bigger coil for the times when I go from the water to the beach.

Anyways I ran across something that I feel bad about. We go about our lives, day in and day out and we rarely think about the men and women in Afghanistan or Iraq. It really doesn't come home until you find one of these.

The second line says, "KIA Mandrigal, Afghanistan 25 Jan 2008"

I would like to get this back to his wife or girlfriend. I would appreciate any help you might be able to give me on this. Thanks.

Here are the two gold rings of the day.

Danger...danger Will Robinson

Well, the surf detecting has been mediocre at best at MB. The waves have been about average painful but I cannot find a hole in the surf. Without a hole you might as well be detecting on Mars... where they found water. I wandered around and then finally headed back to where I got the two rings the other day. This is not a hole, rather it is a place where the sand might be a tad less but the shell layer seems higher. But I have beat this place to death...so I was not expecting much and that is pretty much what I got.

Its kind of a numbers game where I hunt. If I get more than 50 targets in 3-4 hours I am reasonably confident of running onto a gold ring. But lately I can't seem to find squat. So I was surprised by the silver ring and the gold ring. 25 targets, $1.25 in change. No dimes.

If only there were about a foot of sand out of this area I would clean up. Really surprised by this little 14K ring. 1.2 grams.

Danger Will Robinson...I loved that show. No jellyfish stings this morning. Anyways here are a few items that I have dug at MB in the last couple of days. The beach is slightly safer than when I showed up. Pat, pat, pat. I am patting myself on the back.

A new record for me......

New Record for…..

Jellyfish stings yesterday morning; four. One ran into my massive biceps and then my hand. Well, maybe not massive. The jellyfish was small and quite beautiful; a small clear bubble about the size of my fist with short tentacles. I pushed him gently away with my scoop. After all, it was only doing what jellyfish were meant to do; sting people. Later on, in separate incidents, I was stung on the calf and the back of the leg. Of course, when you are involved in finding gold, little of this has any meaning. You simply continue swinging with a gruesome look on your face.
People are never sure if you have been jellyfish stung or whether the last wave that head slapped you makes you look this way.
Eventually the pain blends with all the other pains you have and your face mellows to slightly contorted, until you are stung again or the stainless steel scoop bangs into your shin or from the sharp auger shell that is embedded in the bottom of your foot or the cuts from the can slaw that you dug at twenty inches and then once more your face becomes hideous…oops, that should be gruesome.
Someone told me jellyfish numbers are on the increase because of the myth of global warming.
I've never seen so many people stung until recently. Some people get all over dramatic and have to be carried from the water. This is quite something to see considering the size of people now days.
It is dangerous out there. I found a piece of metal crap with two sharp rusted prongs on it and put it in my nail pouch. When I bent over to scoop, one of the prongs went thru the pouch and stabbed me in the abs....uh stomach. I don't know if it penetrated my skin but my jaw feels funny.
Found about a dollar and a half and thought of going to McDonalds for breakfast. I didn't know if I had quite enough for a biscuit and a senior coffee. Then I thought maybe I should go home and wait for the lockjaw to set in. Lockjaw is a private thing.

Ring Daddy 70 & 71 and the Exploding Tumbler

Has anyone seen my rubber O ring that fits on my tumbler and holds the round lid in place? Yesterday I maybe put too much ammonia in with the coins. When I came home the coins were all over the picnic table with the lid but I cannot find the rubber O ring. Bummer. I looked all over the porch and the yard and even into the neighbors yard. It might still be going.

This morning I was in the water at ten till six. That is 5:50 for people who never get out of bed. Nice sunrise. I'd give it a 5. The spot I picked had nothing. Nada. I thought about a spot that had some targets a few days ago and walked/waded down the beach and sure enough the spot seemed even better than the last time. After my second target I stepped down into a hole and got a quarter signal. OK. I dig it and then there is another right next to the last quarter. After I pull the scoop to the side I check the hole and now I get a foil sound. Hmmm. I check the scoop and pull out the quarter. I love foil sounds. Two more scoops down and I get Ring Daddy #70. Later on I get a funky signal and when I pull the scoop up I see one of those infernal belly button things. It is just about to fall thru a hole when I stick my thumb on it. I wade up to the beach and dump the contents. I pick up the belly button dodad and swing back over the pile of shells. A dime. Two for one. Somewhere in the second hour I got Ring Daddy #71. Here's the mess.

This morning the waves were foot and a half to start with and gradually got larger as the session wore on. This is extremely good conditions at MB. Extremely good. It has been probably four or five weeks since I saw the ocean this cooperative. About 8:30 a little girl comes down to the low tide mark with her wave board and starts screaming a shrill, piercing, I'm being killed scream. Mind you the water has not touched her. The screaming went on and on without her ever getting wet. Some people call these screams; screams of delight. They make me grind my teeth. Then a large woman in a black bathing suit and a boy of about six or seven get into the waves. This boy pounds on the mothers bottom with his fist. She tries to ignor it. If I would have done that to my mother I would not be typing this.

Here's the two gold rings.

If you see my tumbler O ring give me a call.

Random Gold

Yesterday was not very productive but the wind was blowing hard out of the SW. Today it took me a while to locate a hole but when I did I finally started to load up my pouches. Recently I've found things in my scoop that my detector did not signal. I lost a thin gold bracelet a few days ago and then a couple days ago a one dollar bill showed up in my scoop. Today I got a nickle signal and looked in the scoop and there was that glint of gold. Yes!!! It was an ear ring or a belly button thing...I'm not sure which. I was just about to upend my scoop when a green nickle caught my eye. So.....I believe the nickle was the signal and the gold whatever was just along for the ride. Makes you wonder how much gold is really out there but we never hear. $7.30 in change. Brian is gold also.

Four out of five bottlecaps are Bud Lite.

When I get this many targets I expect a gold ring...but it didn't happen today. But I did get the whatever and a Brian pin. 3.6 grams.

Random gold...how many small gold bracelets, necklaces and charms litter the ocean bottom and will never be found....except by accident??

A dollar bill in my scoop....

Well I guess it was bound to happen....I pulled up my scoop and in amongst the shells was a one dollar bill. Cool. I hunted the same spot I found yesterday, just before the big waves ran me off. It started off kind of slow but then it seemed to pick up gradually. 70 targets in four hours. $5.02 in change but we have to add the paper dollar. $6.02

Somewhere in the second hour I ran across this big class ring. 10K, 19 grams.

I emailed Phil Alexander about how Bertha and the recent TD sanded in the beach. All we ever hear about is how a storm stripped all the sand off the beach and people take wheelbarrows down to the beach to pick up the gold. My experience has been that a large number of the storms sand in the beach or do very little to it. Phil remembers the good ol' days when Hugo and the Storm of the Century (March 13, 1993) took at least four feet of sand off the beach. Jason in Tenn. recounts how Ophelia gave him two great low tides before the sand came back in. I have never experienced a beneficial storm. Maybe someday.