Successful Treasure Hunting Part 3.
By Alan Hassell.

see also:
reading the beach
water hunting with the explorer
who dares wins
water 3
formulate a plan
mineralization
wetsand

Ever since people have been getting into the water, over 100 years ago they have been losing things. Those lost items have been accumulating ever since, now there's a stockpile of goodies waiting for someone with an underwater metal detector to harvest those lost valuables. Although you will see guys walking along the dry sands swinging metal detectors wildly over the sands and they might have the odd good find, the real wealth is beyond their reach in the water. It stands to reason, that's where it was lost in the first instance.

Jewellery cannot walk or move by itself, but the power of water can make it move. Wind causes waves, it's those same wave that cause and create underwater currents. Take any beach with an off sea wind and watch an incoming wave, it forms, curls and finally breaks causing a rush of water to race up onto the beach.
The water rushing up the beach is known as swash and despite the fact it may have ran up the beach from an angle, it always returns in a straight line. Another wave follows, does the same thing and what you have is a saw tooth like pattern. The swash returning to the sea, returns with the same force that threw it up onto the beach initially.

When these two forces meet resistance takes place, the returning water has to go somewhere so it returns underneath an incoming wave. This causes undertow, it can also occur when tides are changing in deeper water although you cannot see it, you can certainly feel it once you're in the water.

As the returning water travels into deeper water greater resistance pressure from incoming water causes the returning water to change course and run parallel to the beach. Depending on the wind, this current, driven by the wind and waves removes fine grains of surface sand, gouging a small channel. Eventually, that channel can be as much as two or three feet deeper than the actual bottom.

A river in full flood is so powerful, it can and does removes rocks weighing several tons. How many of you have watched cars being swept away during a news event of a natural disaster on a news item on T.V.? The same things are happening below the waves in those channels by the current. Because of the removal of surface sand, the hard pack is eventually exposed and the whole process slows down considerably.

The hard pack, is where most of the items lost in water come to rest depending of their specific gravity. The greater the SG number the deeper the object will bury itself way into the hardback. A single item could travel the length of beach when those currents are running. This turns the entire length of a beach into a giant Christmas pudding full of goodies scattered all over the place. Just as off sea winds cause waves, off shore winds, flattens them turning the sea into a mill pond. Perfect conditions for shallow water metal detecting.

Although it might sound confusing initially, it all makes sense. When I started to get into the water 15 years ago, there were no books on the subject, no one I could turn to and ask these questions and get answers I needed. During my first attempts to get into the water I used chest high waders, only to find I could only occasionally get into the channel and start recovering gold rings. One had to be careful of depth simply because of the danger of your waders being flooded. Eventually, to overcome the problem a wet suit was found to be the ideal solution.

It was more streamlined, created less resistance, and kept you warm enabling you to stay in the water longer. It also allowed those extra few inches allowing you to gain access to the channel and Dave Jones treasure chest. During a high tide, it is possible to see where rips are occurring, if you return to these area's on a low tide they can produce a great deal of goodies throw about when the water was running.

Take a good look at a beach when the tides out, notice the areas filled with water. It is these area's that tidal action has taken place. The average person cannot afford mechanical digging machines, so let nature do it for you. The sea removes tons of sand and it's up to you to learn how to read a beach and also find the goodies awaiting your arrival. Because if you don't find them, someone more determined than you will. Piers, and Jetties have always attracted men and boys for ages. On a hot sunny day, they swarm onto them in their droves diving and jumping into the water below.

In the 50-60s and 70s it was not unusual to find a small pocket situated on a pair of swimming trunks. Ideal for putting your car keys and a few bob in, just in case you wanted a cold drink or ice cream. Trouble is the manufacturer's had never heard of the word gravity. Once a person becomes inverted, the weight of the objects in the pocket caused them to fall out in the sands below.
A great many watches can also be found around piers, they come off after the pin bar is forced out of the watch casing owing to the pressure exerted on it when a person dives into the water. The same applies to the weakest link in gold chains. It's not unusual for a diver to find a carpet of coins and other goodies from 15 feet out, to 3 feet from a pier or Jetty. Because these have been accumulating for many years the ideal way to search area's such as this is by methodical trenching.

Much the same as an archaeologist would do at one of his digs. It involves using one hand to wave away the sand while using the detector with the other. In order to do this comfortably, I would lower an extra weight belt to the bottom and put it on at the bottom. I needed this to stay on the bottom and work without suffering buoyancy problems.

During the hour or two I stayed on the bottom, it was not unusual to find I had excavated a small trench about 5-6 foot long and 18 inches wide removing heaps of targets in the process. Working in this fashion one day, I recovered an old square automatic watch. Despite being submerged for many years, it still worked. Phoning the distributor I was asked to bring the watch to them for their inspection.

They in turn presented me with a free watch of my choice in exchange for it. Fair exchange, considering the only cost to me was time and petrol to feed my hookah compressor. You need a detector with and adjustable sensitivity control to do this as a straight out pulse machines is too sensitive and you'll get a solid signal, not knowing where to dig because there are so many targets.

The Fisher Impulse and CZ20 are the ideal machines for this and is purposely designed for the job. Years ago, it was not unusual to see floating diving platforms anchored a short distance from the beach. People would swim out and sunbathe on these platforms often diving from them to cool off. Find one of these old sites and you'll recover heaps of goodies. Some councils even built special tidal swimming enclosures for toddlers and people scared of entering the water for fear of sharks. Some of these had special lockers to protect your valuables whilst you were in the water.
Do some research, ask the old timers, find out where these baths were and the rewards will pay for your efforts. How about those natural rock pools, not being affected by tides, whatever was lost in them, stays at the bottom under a layer of sand. If you don't live near a beach, that's no problem, people still love water, there must be a river, creek, lake or dam used by people years ago.
Lakes are great places to search, some had special reserved swimming area's that the fell into disuse, and became abandoned in the 60s when people became aware of poliomyelitis and pollution. Because lakes are not tidal, the object remains where it was lost and remains waiting for someone with a detector. Many of these old swimming area's are still there waiting to be harvested. Almost every river near a township, has a deep hole that was used for swimming.

How many goodies lie under the mud waiting for someone to come along with a metal detector. Some of these places, owing to their popularity may have had a kiosk nearby, selling cold drinks to visitors.

Wherever people congregate, there's always someone out to provide them with food of one kind or another, that's business. How many coins were dropped into the dirt below with being noticed. Its a fact of life that millions of coins go out of circulation every year, a percentage of these coins will never see the light of day until someone comes along and digs them out of the ground. Human's were given the largest computer in the world, it called your brain. Trouble is most of us only use 10% of it's capabilities. In short people don't think for themselves, they rely upon others to do their thinking for them.

Only when they learn of something good, will it cause someone to sit up and take interest. There are four types of people in this world, dreamers, thinker's, talker's and doer's.
I cut that short and say there are the winner's and loser's. People do not find gold rings and other valuables sitting in front of a television, with a tinny in one hand and a metal detector in the other, hoping goodies jump out of the carpet into your lap. It does not work that way and never will. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.

The people that become successful are the doer's, they use their brains, they work out a plan and stick to it. Persistence and determination are the main ingredients of success. The devil, one day held a garage sale of all his powerful tools . Sitting high on a pedestal was an old wooden wedge with a sign definitely not for sale.

When asked why he was prepared to sell all his other tools but not that one, the devil replied, ''that's my wedge of discouragement, with that one tool, I can make all my other tools useless. Eventually, the person who bought one of my tools gives up, I not only get my tool back, but I have won another soul.'' You must have a positive mental attitude, if you haven't got that, then you're destined to be a dreamer, thinker or talker. The laws of physics are continually working for you. Although, my source of treasure might be small, it accumulates and beats the heavy fines, penalties, restrictions and costs involved in wreck diving.

It is highly addictive, you're out in the sun getting plenty of fresh air, excersise and its one of the most enjoyable and rewarding activities ever devised for man or woman. Several elderly ladies are not only having a lot of fun, they have found over one hundred gold rings each in the process. Now that you know my secrets, you can share in some of treasure's, but remember one thing, you have to be in it to win it, no one gets something for nothing.

There's no such thing as luck, you make your own luck in this world, it's a four letter word spelt work. The harder you work at it, the luckier you get. For those wanting more information I suggest reading the following, Treasure hunting with a metal detector, in, around and under water. Also Advanced Shallow water metal detecting available from Fisher detecting equipment, also two very good books put out by Spyglass Enterprises in USA called Diamonds in the Surf and The Second Adventure. I only wished they were available over here when I first got into the water, Knowledge is perhaps the most essential item anyone cant get enough of. The more you know, the more you want to learn. It helps if you too want to be successful.