September has not been kind. This month has been dismal as far as gold and I blame Hanna. She came in here and brought huge amounts of sand to Myrtle Beach. The low we had about a week ago took some sand away but only a small portion of what Hanna brought in. So dismal it is.

Targets are so rare they scare you. Two days ago I ran onto a coin spot beneath one of the piers. That's where I headed. As I came down the beach I found one small area with five targets. One was this crapanium United States Marine Ring. This is the second crapanium ring in the last week. I don't know how much more disappointment I can stand.

The pier did not disappoint me with the coins. 115 coins in three hours. One Sacagewa dollar coin and 61 pennies. $9.11. Pretty good coin total. No gold or jewelry.

Once I got five feet away from the pier I found nothing. All the coins were directly under the pier. Some were laying on top of the sand.

I hate you September. I am glad you are gone.

"Hey, babycakes, you sure are looking fine. What's that? Your name is October. That's a pretty name."

Yesterday I ran into a coin bonanza under one of the piers. $6.33 in just a couple of hours. But coins are not gold rings...and I did not feel that I was going to get a gold ring under the pier today so....off I went to Peat Beach. With the intentions of surf hunting and digging the peat. But alas, when I got there the hole was gone. I waded around for a while. Watched a guy with an Excaliber digging targets on the beach so up to the beach I go. It took me forever to find my first target, a penny. Then it seemed excruciatingly slow. The third target this gold ring rolls out.



Ran into guy named Gurney and he was complaining about the lack of targets. We traded detector stories for about twenty minutes and I finally got back to swinging...but today I was lazy and ended up leaving the beach after three hours. Only thirty targets in three hours.





Myrtle Beach has not gotten uncovered from all the sand that Hanna brought us. And there is no wind in sight. Maybe I will be under the pier tomorrow.


Lots of pelicans around the last couple of days. I love these big birds. You don't realize how big they are until are wading around in the water and one zooms by ten feet from you. I love to watch them crash dive into the sea and come up with a fish. Amazing birds.

Ring Daddy #93 and sharing with the Pip....

Last night was not good. Less than a dollar in change. This morning I decided to drive up to Peat Beach and meet the sunrise. As I got swinging down the beach a small sandpiper decided to become my companion. I would dig a hole for a target and when I was finished the Pip would run in and check out the filled in hole and the pushed around sand. I was uncovering quite a few sand fleas this morning and I suppose that is what he was after. This little Pip was brave, standing within five or six feet of me while I dug. If I remember correctly from Biology class this is what is called a symbiotic relationship. I do the work and the sandpiper gets the sand fleas. He followed me for quite some time. At one point, when it was a while between signals, he stood off and gave me a dirty look. I swear he did. Eventually he disappeared.

I went high on one of my grid lines and out popped a class ring. Alrighty!! I'm in the money, I'm in the money....

Of course, when I got it to the house and put it under the magnifying glass there was no marking and some rust on it.

Then I went low on one of my grid lines and picked up the small gold wedding band.

I ended up with $4.08 in change, one gold ring, a nice sharks tooth and my new friend, Pip.

Ring Daddy #90, 91 and 92....a Nice One!!

Last night I headed north in my VW to hunt the beach with the peat bottom. I was not really looking forward to this but when nothing else is working you do what needs to be done. I hate driving to hunt. I love riding my bike but this was quite a few miles from the house. At least the parking is free now. It is cloudy and overcast and the waves are large. I switch on the Excaliber and swing down the beach for twenty feet and get a signal. A young man and three boys are watching me dig. I kick the sand around and this pops out.

The young guy sees it before I can grab it. I hurry away with my prize. One of the kids runs after me and ask if I found a gold ring. I lie to him and tell him no. I swing down the beach and some coins start to pop out. Hmmmm. This might be OK. I might not get in the water and dig peat. I start to grid the beach, concentrating on keeping my coil close to the sand. After about an hour and a half this little wedding band shows up. Excellent!!

After four hours I am hungry and tired and hungry. I celebrate at Taco Bell!! Eeeha Baby!!

Here is the mess. $4.10 in change. The night before I got less than a dollar.

3:57 A.M. I glance at the alarm clock. Time to get up and get it!! I brew coffee and then I am out the door. There is gold to find! I head for the same area as last night. I park in a different lot which puts me in a bit different spot on the beach. It is dark. Once again there are coins and pulltabs and I can almost see with the lights from the motels to find my targets. I just keep kicking the target around tell it is the only thing left. Tenth target and the pulltab does not come out with one scoop. I scoop again and then feel through the sand for....what's this?? The motel light gleams off the ring. I turn and wash it off in the waves. Hooweee Baby!!!

I put it down in my swimming shorts pocket. I keep checking to see if it is still there. I am nervous about losing it. What if I move the wrong way and it falls out of my pocket? What if it wears a hole in my pocket? What if....Shut Up and get back to digging!!

About an hour later I get a looow signal. Say low as low as you can. Yep, that's it and the gold colored ring next to the sparkler shows up. I am confident I have gold #2 for the morning. After four hours I have to go to the bathroom. Time to leave. I hurry to McDonalds. I sure am glad no one was in the stall. I would've had to pull them out of there.

Here is the mess for this morning.

Gold ring #2 is Stainless Steel. Sure sounded and looked good.

Pretty nice sharks tooth but it doesn't have a good gumline. You know where I will be this evening.

Ring Daddy #89 and Oh, for the love of peat....

When I was growing up my dad would say things like, "Oh, for the love of peat" or "Oh, for peats sake". This was when he was frustrated with me or something. I never really understood it. What could it mean?

Thursday afternoon, Gene and I headed north to hunt an area that I rarely hunt because I don't like it. I think out of all the times I've hunted this stretch of beach I have found one gold ring. But I have not hunted it for a long time and I needed a break from the south end of MB.

Part of the incentive was driven by the phone call from Jim Paliani saying he had found a two tone gold ring and a big platinum ring in this area.

So off we go...I with low to no expectations.

The beach is massively sanded in just like the south end. I see a small depression in the surf, almost a hole, that curves out to sea, and wade in. Gene swings down the beach.

Within a minute I have my first signal. I set the scoop and push. It springs back. Huh? I push harder and make some headway. It seems spongy. What the heck is this? My monster Sunspot scoop makes a small hole in this stuff and I pull up a mass of black...gunk. I shake it but the mass sticks together. I pull the scoop from the water and almost pass out from the smell. Ugh!! It won't break apart. I take my right hand and break the mess apart while staying upwind. I shake it vigorously and the black debris turns the ocean black in front of me. I look around hoping no one is watching or smelling me. Of course there is always someone watching. I ignor the onlookers. Eventually I see a black coin in the bottom. Too weird.

I get more targets and each coin is as black as night. There are quite a few sinkers and I start to think that maybe this stinking black stuff is too compact for anything to sink through it. Maybe a gold ring would be in this mess.

I wondered if I could dig through this layer of peat (I think that is what this is...decaying matter) but never found a layer below.

This stuff is frustrating to dig and then when you get a chunk in your scoop you have to break it apart with your hands. Very time consuming.

I found myself saying, "Oh, for the love of peat!" and "Oh, for peats sake!"

Finally a small gold wedding band shows up in the black mess. So, yes, I guess this stuff is holding the gold up where a very determined individual with extreme patience, no sense of smell and a small stick of dynamite might retrieve some of it. Here is the mess...see the black coins.

Man, it was cold out there. The water was warm but the wind coming from the north chilled my top half when it was out of the water. I can't believe I am already thinking about my wetsuit. Here is the little wedding band.

Two gold rings and "No Swimming"...

I've only gotten one gold ring in 17 days of hunting almost everyday and sometimes both low tides. Hanna added sand to the beach and surf here in MB, so I was not looking for anything from the beach today. Tried a different spot....just because. Right away I see a dark spot in the surf and wade in. There is some current running in the hole but there are a few targets. Finally I see gold in the scoop...a gold ear ring. Dadgum!!! Will I never find a gold ring??? About ten minutes later I see a gold ring trapped in the bottom of the scoop between the metal and the end of the wooden handle. My second gold ring of September. Well now I am feeling better.

Suddenly I see the lifeguard lady run down to the edge of the water and dropping her stuff. I look behind me and see a small boy floundering in the breakers. A nearby man with a body board went over and pulled him out of the rip current. I can see the boy is pretty exhausted. The lifeguard lady runs up and puts up two no swimming signs, defining the outer limits of the hole I am in. So out I come. I look down the beach a quarter mile and see another hole. This one is smaller but it gave me the big junk ring. Then a quarter mile further I get into a third hole and out pops the small wedding band.

Four and a half hours in the surf. $2.69 in change.

Sure glad to see a gold ring again!!

And another one finds its way into the scoop.

The gold for the day totaled 7.7 grams. A great day compared to what I have found lately.

I found the gold, I lost the gold, I found the gold, I lost the gold...

What a morning!!! Did you hear me cursing at ten after nine this morning?? I was supposed to meet someone at 9:00. At 8:40, in naval deep surf I get a low signal. When I bring the scoop up I see a gold chain drop thru the scoop holes. I scooped and scooped and scooped. One of these times I saw the chain drop through again. I set my scoop aside and tried to dive blind for the chain. Twice I could feel it fall through my fingers. I thought about putting my cap in the scoop and trying to scoop the chain but the cap floated out of the scoop. After thirty minutes of extreme frustration I left the surf without the chain. I WILL put some mesh in the bottom of my scoop. I will not go through this agonizing, hateful loss of gold again!!!
Sometimes we have to get mad to get motivated.

Ring Daddy #86 and TS Hanna

TS Hanna pummeled MB hard from 11:30 till about 12:30 making Diana's trailer roof rumble. And then it got quiet for twenty minutes and then a large gust rattled the roof but with a different rumble. Then it was intermittent gust rumblings. I could tell the wind was from a different direction. I slept fitfully and was glad when 5:30 came so I could get up. The rain and the wind was gone, the clouds sprinted across the late night time sky going north. At 6:15, in the predawn darkness, I left the car and headed thru the dunes to the beach. Something was wrong. I had to walk up hill through the opening in the dunes. The dunes were massively sanded in. I started chuckling as I got on the beach. There in the dark was one of the boxes used by the lifeguards and it was half buried in sand. The beach chairs were buried in sand. I switched on the Excaliber and wandered back and forth to the low tide line. Nothing. Not a peep. Hanna had done its damage...it had sanded in the beach, as sanded in as I have ever seen. Mountains of new sand. Hanna had accomplished in one night what the 40 million dollar renourishment program is taking months to do. What a hoot!! Now, I thought about all the excited detectorist hitting the beach with wild expectations of wheelbarrows of loot, only to find sand and more sand.

At 6:30 I eased into the surf. The sandbar was breaking the waves nicely and making it workable. My first target was a silver ring. Green coins started to find their way into my pouch. And finally I heard that nice wholesome, I am not a pulltab, sound. Out comes a class ring. My first gold ring in ten days of hunting the surf and beach.

The waves grew large and ran me out. I tried the upper beach but could only wrestle up a few coins.

Here is the 14K class ring. 9.1 grams. So Hanna gave me a hole in the surf and massively sanded in the beach. I know where I will be this evening.

Chalk up another storm that added sand rather than took it away.

Dejavu all over again....

A couple of months ago I lost a little gold chain that fell thru my scoop. Of course, I was digging a different target and it just happened to find its way into the scoop. That day I was in waist deep water with no visibility. Today, I was digging a normal sounding target when, once again, I see a gold chain drop through my scoop holes...but this time I was in calf deep water and could see the little bugger. Then I retreived the quarter that was the original target.

Life has been hard at MB lately. I cannot seem to find a hole in the surf....until today. Just after low tide I found a depression with some targets. Man, this makes it fun. Oh yeah, I found a piece of bone...a big piece of fossilized bone. Maybe whale. Also, I got a car and motorcycle to fill up my non existent garage.

The bracelet is surprisingly heavy for being so small, 4 grams 14K. The picture came out good. I wish I knew how I did that.

When I laid the bracelet on the sand and ran my Excaliber across it I only got a signal, a very low Barry White signal, when the coil was within a half an inch of the bracelet. It was pure luck that I retreived this bracelet.