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.