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 WATER
TREASURE--WHO DARES WINS
By Alan Hassell Copyright 1/6/1984
This was the very first article I wrote regarding shallow water
metal detecting. In Australia, I wrote it shortly after meeting
Tim Mcnickle using a Whites PI1000 in Elwood. Whilst other people
were detecting on the gold fields I had found a new way of finding
it. Having had the beach to ourselves for four years, it was time
to tell the others how to do it. Every treasure hunter dreams of
being self-sufficient and having a source of income with no bottom
to the barrel. Imagine owning your own gold mine, money tree or
bank, where despite your withdrawals, you could never flatten your
account.
Water is perhaps the last frontier, where vast expanses of virgin
territory exists today. Few people realize that more treasure is
lost in water than on land. Even items lost on land will eventually
end up in water. The amount of goodies lost in water is mind boggling.
Apart from the coins, there are numerous jewelry items such as rings,
watches, pendants, ingots, I.D. bracelets, chains and brooches.
Unlike any gold field, the water is the one place where the gold
will never be exhausted, owing to continuity of replenishment. Next
time you pass a jeweler's window, have a look at the prices of those
rings, ingots and valuables.
A one-carat diamond ring for instance can range from four to 5 figures
depending on the quality. A good thick wedding band can weigh as
much as fifteen grams, that's almost half an ounce. With gold at
today's prices that's not bad should you find one? In some parts
of the World people are finding 50 to 100 gold rings a day. What
about the ingots, they vary from 5 grams to an ounce of .999 pure
in the case of gold. Finding such a trinket could be compared to
finding a nugget of equivalent weight.
People are still wearing ID bracelets, that were all the rage in
the 60s. I have found several ladies ones in silver weighing upto
55 grams. Men wear heavy gold ones, some weighing as much as three
ounces imagine finding one of those. People have always loved the
water, beach, lakes, rivers, creeks, and even dams, which they used
to cool off in on a hot sunny day.
Water hunting, is new to Australia, but has been going on for years
in the U.S.A. I predict this facet of metal detecting will become
very popular in the near future. (One of my predictions that did
come true.) In November 1980 I decided on an all out effort to search
the water, Here's how I did it, but owing to hidden dangers, the
author and publishers of this magazine take no responsibility for
any damage to your detector should you attempt the same.
Metal detector's are basically designed for use on land and have
short stems. This restricts the users to a water depth of only 18
inches. To overcome this problem, a special search rod was constructed
for me by a local engineering firm. The next item on the agenda
was to lengthen the cables to the coil and headphones. Having read
an article in an American magazine, I carefully studied the photographs
of these guy's floating their detectors on inner tubes looking for
clues.
Photographs in magazines consist of a series of dots; you don't
magnify the detail only the dots so they were of little use. The
problem was to join two lengths of cable together and keep the water
out at the same time. Eventually a solution to my problem was found
in the form of a piece of clear plastic tubing large enough to fit
over the connectors.
Rubber Bungs used for wine making would be drilled and cut with
a razor blade and a couple of radiator hose clips either side would
ensure a watertight seal. Elementary my dear Watson. A visit to
a car wrecker got me a couple of inner tubes onto which I fitted
a wooden box to hold my metal detector. I had removed the insulating
shaft from my old search rod and I now fitted it to the new one
I had made for me.
Coils although waterproof are buoyant and to overcome this I had
purchased quite a lot of buckshot from a gunsmith and filled the
tube of my new search rod with it. Many coils which have been subjected
to a lot of use on the gold fields may have minute cracks in them,
these will allow salt water in.
Once water gets into a coil, it cant be repaired, the only solution
is to replace it with a new one. Being the careful owner that I
am, I had bought skid plates for my coil from new so I was working
with and old but still new looking coil. Searching water is different
to on the land. Most people know that detector's go banana's once
they even get near salt water. Once in the water though things will
work out.
Raise your coil off the sea bed about 6 inches and press the retune
switch, your detector should go quiet. Don't worry, it's still working.
You can ground cancel in fresh water, but not in salt. This is why
the detector goes quiet. Water being a conductor should in theory
add to the depth capabilities of your detector.
You can work in both VLF or TR modes. I prefer the later owing to
the numerous nails and junk found in the water. It is a great dumping
place remember. I usually turn up the discriminator just enough
to knock out nails. At this level there is no risk of losing small
gold rings. Special recovery tools need to be constructed as none
are made in Australia. My scoop consists of a heavy gauge screened
steel; it's nine inches long and 6 inches deep. The handle is made
from an old gas pipe with a curved handle.
This works just fine and a target can usually be recovered in the
first scoop. Towing a floating screen behind you will speed up recovery
of the object. One can be made out of aviary wire attached to a
wooden frame and floated on a motorcycle inner tube.
WAVES, WINDS AND TIDES.
Knowing something about conditions will assist in successful searching
too. For instance always work two hours before and two hours after
low tide. This allows you to get into area's previously unexplored
for about 4 hours. Knowing when the tides are going to occur will
help so obtain a tide chart, most BP garages give them away. Wind
causes waves, which in turn affect the bottom for instance an off
sea wind can bring sand up onto the beach, piling sand up onto the
natural bottom.
Natural bottoms can be clay or stones. This is where the goodies
are. An off shore wind on the other hand will remove the sand and
take it out to sea. This is sometimes known as a blowout, but the
wind must be in excess of 30 mph to be of any good. When it does
happen, oncoming waves are flattened by the force of the wind and
the sea is flat like a duck pond.
Another quirk of nature is known as cut out, this is when waves
race up the beach and undercut the sand. Cliff like structures appear
which are undermined by the oncoming water. Eventually the overhang
breaks off, the sand is then returned to the sea. Usually modern
coins are carried with this sand back into the sea and can be found
at the water's edge, sometimes the occasional ring too.
Whenever you go on the beach, keep an eye out for sandbars. A short
distance from the sand bar usually on the beach side, a channel
will form which is slightly deeper than surrounding area's. It is
in this channel that most goodies will be found, especially if signs
of bottom, rocks and stones are visible. As the sea is in a constant
state of flux, changing and moving all the time, so is the bottom.
Some days Neptune will open up his locker and you can recover all
sorts of goodies. Don't expect it to be like that all the time though,
tons of sand can be dumped over your hunting ground and you will
not find a thing until the sand moves once more. Understanding geology
of the sea is just as important to the water hunter as it is to
the land based prospector. Do your research, before you search.
UNDERWATER METAL DETECTORS.
Special Underwater metal detector's are now available through good
retailer's. During the early days some manufacturer's produced machines
suitable for fresh water but couldn't work in salt water. The main
problem the abundance of black magnetic sands, such as hematite.
This mineral causes Induction Balance detectors to give false signals.
You end up digging holes that only contain black sands, and no targets.
Some of the very early underwater detectors, made by JAW. Fisher
only had a meter, no earphones, it was great if you were swimming
with scuba gear but had its limitations. In future you can expect
to hear quite a lot about the White's PI 1000 underwater metal detector.
Burns Scott the distributors, offered me one for testing without
headphones, I now know why... Tim McNickle of Sydney was using the
PI at Elwood when we met and became good buddies.
During the five days we worked together Tim only dug up junk, with
the exception of a few coins. I even took him to one of my favorite
spots where I had found four gold rings in a day. Tim worked dammed
hard at it but the best he could do was pick up junk. Let me elaborate
on this for a moment.
The PI1000 is made in Inverness in Scotland; it is a Pulse Induction
machine as such it is highly sensitive to small ferrous objects.
When turned on it sounds like a ticking clock, this is because unlike
conventional detectors it has a mechanical warning device. When
an object is bought near the coil those clicks speed up, something
like the old BFO machines we used years ago.
There is no change in tone or pitch in the signal. Just a steady
increase of speed of the clicks. It is possible to pinpoint but
not as accurately as a T.R. You must sweep north, south, east and
west during pinpointing. During the half-hour that Tim allowed me
to use his PI1000, I only dug up trash.
This does not mean it won't find gold rings, it will but you must
dig every target in the hope of finding one. Tim found one in the
U.S.A. but admits he had to dig a lot of junk to do it.
A test report published in an American Magazine stated that a ring
would give a single beep or click in both directions. A ferrous
object would give a double signal in one of the directions. This
is impossible; it was obvious to me that the person who wrote that
report had probably never even seen it yet alone experienced White's
bone conductor. With this sort of verbal diarrhea being published
one not only doubts the credibility of the author but also that
of the magazine that published the report.
Garrets have gone one step further and introduced the XL 200 which
is the worlds first discriminating Pulse Induction metal detector.
Pulse Induction, once popular in the U.K. lost its popularity owing
to it's over sensitivity to ferrous objects and high battery drain.
T.R.s are now being used instead of PIs. D-Tex are introducing the
ultimate underwater metal detector, known as the Scuba King, modern
technology has been used to develop this superb detecting device.
Working at 15 Kilohertz V.L.F. a frequency noted in Australia for
its ability to locate minute nuggets on the gold fields, it is an
excellent looking machine. It features automatic ground canceling
and discrimination, the being set to eliminate ferrous objects but
retain the ability to detect small white gold rings. The circuitry
is enclosed in a watertight cylinder mounted to a search rod with
an eight-inch coil. Two external controls which rotate around the
cylinder use magnets to activate the device.
The lower control selects one of the two battery packs, which is
used until it totally discharges. It is then rotated to bring in
the second set of batteries. No other detector has a feature such
as this to my knowledge. A special charger is included in the package
to recharge the batteries, good one Mr. D-Tex. With the cost of
batteries these days, it pays to use Nicads; over a period of time
will save you heaps of money.
The uppermost control is a simple on/off switch. Simple being the
keyword because you just turn it on and start producing. It's that
easy. Two stems are supplied as standard equipment, a short one
for diving and a long one for wading which extends to about 50 inches.
Although no visual meter is available, the headphone or bone conductor
gives a beaut audio signal when an object is detected. This can
be placed under a wet suit helmet or inserted into a special pair
of ear muffs (supplied) and used as conventional headphones.
The Scuba King is fully submersible to a depth of 200 feet which
is far more than you will ever encounter. Using the Scuba King is
sensational; a pistol grip and hip mount arm support makes the detector
an extension of your arm. Very little drag is experienced during
scanning. Almost neutral buoyancy is built into the instrument,
however a small lead weight is included for fitting to the cylinder
to achieve this.
Pinpointing is achieved by shaking the coil over the target. Getting
the Goodies. During tests on a cold day in April in a well populated
swimming area, the third target produced a small delicate child's
ring with a heart shaped green stone. Numerous coins were recovered
together with spoons, sinkers and other items, it got the goodies
and left the trash for the others.
Some of the items required several scoops to be removed. This is
indicative of the excellent depth penetration of the V.L.F. This
mode of operation is included in all latest Hi-Technology detectors.
Recovery of objects missed by the old TRs should be dead easy owing
to the extra depth. My search for the ultimate underwater recovery
device is now finished.
When working in water, it is best to start at the waters edge towards
the sea. Wading in water its possible to cover strips about 4-5
feet wide until a comfortable depth is reached. You would be amazed
how much ground can be covered in this fashion It's gridding in
water instead of on land. What does the well dressed water hunter
wear, it could be jeans, waders or a wet suit.
I prefer the later because it not only keeps you warm but is also
more streamlined. Always wear some kind of foot protection, there's
plenty of broken glass and other objects that could injure your
feet. With the advent of the Scuba King you can now search in any
weather, the rougher the better.
However modifiers are restricted to calm weather only. Remember
one drop of salt water could cost you a new circuit board, speaker,
meter, coil and battery pack. They all cost money and time. Never
search with a modified detector when there are waves about, the
risks are too great and manufacturer's frown upon the use of a machine
for which it was not designed.
Melbourne's John Crowley uses a modified Fisher 1260 and A2B; he
prefers the 1260 owing to its ground canceling capabilities. John
averages $8 in modern coins, apart from all the oldies on an average
day. His best find so far is a 58 gram silver wrist bracelet. Known
as the Silver man, owing to his collection of silver rings, John
recently lost his nickname after finding his first gold ring
John like Tim and myself will be customers for the new Scuba King
so that we can exploit the potential of this area. With a coastline
as great as Australia's water hunting will become very popular with
our treasure hunters. The rewards are great, but danger exist even
in the water.
It's a case of WHO DARES WINS.
This was the very first article I wrote about shallow water metal
detecting in Australia. Later, much later after I started to learn
more about my new environment, I realized, that Pulse machines such
as the Whites allowed you to get into the channels were all those
goodies were waiting to be recovered. Everything was trial and error,
nothing was easy. Learning about this new environment took a great
deal of time and effort. Today, passing on that knowledge ensures
that individuals such as yourself, don't have to learn the hard
way. We learnt through our mistakes blunders and lack of knowledge.
Anyone reading my informative articles that they are today are given
the facts and plenty of them. It's articles such as mine that make
you successful, if you are prepared to put in the hard work, persistence
and be dedicated. Nothing in life is meant to be easy including
shallow water metal detecting. Happy Hunting.
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