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As I told last week, I was preparing the Manti for today's session on the seabed. In a few words, "damn it works"... Even if I abused the machine using underwater the beach LC program, I however managed to take with me three pieces. The second attempt will be with surf and seawater, which I think it is the proper way to use it when diving. Not bad for the day one💣

I recently had some doubts in using the main detector and was pondering the possibility of eliminating some by selling. In detail, I complained of some high ID response that I accidentally dug up in the absence of decent signals. The last victorious session, brought me a 6.49-gram 18K wedding ring and by sheer luck, with an amazing 80, I deigned to dig it out. So this morning I decided to go out with a dear old detector, one that doesn't mess around, and the numbers are shocking considering the spot, the devastated condition of the clay and rocks, and lousy visibility. After 4 1/2 hours on the bottom, thanks to the use of hooka compressor, I flushed out 4 pieces totaling 20 "dirty" grams. The numbers speak for themselves, and I am beginning to have clearer ideas.... I will add no more...

Being far from the seabed for over a week and forced to appreciate the wetsand work, I honestly loved the things I found in these days and kept a good pre-view of the lower eroded slope meanwhile hunting the upper side. After one small ring and a necklace last monday and another ring with a diamond yesterday, it was clear that a precise point remained unhunted or at least not so well explored by others. Doing the maths I checked a time window of three hours this morning to go underwater exactly in the same point and facing the hotpoint where I pulled up the good stuff on the shore. As soon as I was facing the bottom, I realized the suspected conditions I had when water was too murky to see it for good among waves. I've seen this s##t too many times in two decades so thinking about heavy scattered iron, slippery clay and boulders with almost no sand at all to cover the surface, I opened totally the screen and started listening everything to remove the masking stuff... Due to the deep flat slope, the only places where to keep the eyes and ears open were the holes filled with moved rocks... Ten minutes and the first wedding band it was in my hands. Already happy but conscious that nothing more than luck caused so soon the first hit, other two hours passed until the second hit with a terrible silence in between... So the second wedding band, this time white gold with a little ice it's been recovered and warmed the heart and the wetsuit. As usual my camera it was left home and all that remains is this picture😂

I took up a ritual as a pure pastime, devoting a few hours to the shoreline. Some time ago I found with great wonder, a small ring in a really forgotten stretch of a beach, where I could barely find iron and a few coins. This morning, it being stormy and so for the rest of the week, I returned a little further than the spot where I was successful. The only promising area with obvious erosion was about 10 square meters. A very strong concentration of clay and black sand was making Ctx sick, so I immediately opened the pattern and changed separation, given the incredible masking I could hear. What happened next, in a dozen coins, is nothing short of a miracle for me. For the first time I found myself looking for a pendant that might belong to the necklace instead of the other way around, and the little ring had opened a sliver of hope amidst very obvious signals, but mixed with really too much iron. I think the necklace gave a minimal signal because of the knot along the links by the way. Nothing else to record for today, but what a day guys!

If you keep a diver out of the water for more than a week, it goes bad like fish. Not to rot during this lousy time of zero visibility and bad waves, I went back to the little miracle spot on wetsand today. Although I had returned yesterday with a 6", no signal was in range and quite disappointed and tired I returned home after two hours. Instead, this morning I was with the 11" retracing the same steps. After more than 4 hours with my arm wrecked and all too much aluminum dug out, as I was leaving the beach I was swinging the detector just enough not to keep it off and really stumbled upon an unmistakable signal. I titled the previous post "seriously?"...Well this must be the second act. After 20 years, I continue to experience the wonder of certain days. The spark of gold can make you forget even that you are broken.

After the last three days of waiting, with little pronounced swell but enough to make the surf area impassable, this morning I tried to hang on despite the water still being choppy and the visibility really bad. Once again, a pattern with really tight high and low iron limits selected the few signals worthy of digging. I must say that while limiting the sensitivity, I am afraid it is the only efficient way for me to make an effective session in certain conditions. As usual the cam's battery died before the glory shine and however, just sand suspension and fast water it's been the subject for 99% of the dive session.

I recently had some doubts about the effectiveness of my sessions and made a radical change in instrumentation. Although I had been adopting the Deus 2 on the bottom for a year continuously now, I first overdid it by dusting the immortal Excalibur and later dusting the Ctx3030... Last week the numbers suddenly spiked and I reluctantly decided to sell the Deus 2. As I write, the new owner of the remote is getting ready to go out for the first time to the beach with my former detector. What happened this morning, however, marks a historic date for me. I am a diver, I practice the shoreline very little, and in my area, given the minimal tidal variation, practically after the first autumn storms the equipment is all in the water... Well, after years, I pulled up a ring in one of the worst spots where nothing but aluminum, iron and rarely any coins turn up. I hate to repeat it, but the time saved by avoiding digging out any possible sign made all the difference. Little does the bit of gold matter; getting to dig it up matters to me. I have no words 🏴‍☠️

In the common imagination, beach hunting is based on the first few feet of shoreline, sometimes at the top, sometimes at the edge of an eroded step, sometimes in flooded pools after a decent tide. All of this in my area is out of the question and being forced to enter the water and totally submerge, today, after three sessions I summarize what I am observing. On the first day, in a spot I hadn't been to in over 10 years, I pulled out a triple ring and amazingly not far from where I found a twin 10 years earlier. Finally, the first piece of 2024🤔. On the second day, a really thin ring, different spot, and really unusual water depth. It all ends today, with the third session in the same spot as yesterday, but this time even deeper at about 5 meters and very far from the shore. A man's wedding ring, after a century of other much thinner and lighter finds. The outer sandbar may remain the final frontier. Rarely, pits can open at such depths, and if they do, it is generally because of a play of currents with which one should not mess around. I am considering a floating platform of the bodyboard kind, to be kept on the surface as a safety device for a return to shore or at least to have something to cling to effortlessly and return to shore with the help of the board and fins. By the way, finally some shines.

Hi all. Lost my password, couldn't be bothered resetting it lol so I've just been lurking on the work PC for a few weeks. Been out heaps this year - I'm up to 53 rings for 2024 so far, mainly thanks to a couple of untouched washouts that I accidentally uncovered. One of the first hunts for the year produced 24 rings, I'll post that in another thread. The very first water hunt for the year, back around Jan 5th, ish, produced 5 nice gold rings, including my 3rd, and biggest 22ct ring. I nicknamed this one "Boggle-eye", it looks very steampunk. What an odd design though? Our jeweller said it looks to be a natural emerald and natural ruby, but the ring has been crudely modified and the second stone was added at a later date, you can see 1 stone was set nicely but the other was simply "attached" with a bezel. Maybe there was a matching smaller stone that broke? It's hallmarked "22ct KDM". Fun fact, KDM is short for Cadmium which was only used in jewellery for a short time and is now banned in India due to being toxic when worn/worked with. From memory, it's the solder that contains it, not the gold alloy but I could be wrong on that. Either way, I'm scrapping it and reusing the stones. The day started out quiet, I bumped in to another fellow prospector snorkeling in the water using his Excal who managed to snag a ring as well. I was using the Manticore w/ 11" coil. The area was a flat sandy clayish rocky area which always holds lots of coins and jewellery. I used to dive it with my Nomad but with all this sand movement and calm water lately, it's really easy to snorkel there and just duck dive for each target which is awesome! Might be a bit different in winter though. The area photographed below is from months ago when I dived it with the D2 - it's very similar now but way more open instead of just the odd small opening in the sand. Also, not to knock the Deus too hard but... this Manticore is an absolute beast. D2 was super unstable and struggled to pick up a lot of targets due to how much iron was there. The Manticore has been an absolute dream to use. So stable and has incredible depth - the WG ring in the middle was about 1ft down in sand and still rang up beautifully. Highly recommend. Thanks for reading. HH

I want to address this discussion without attacking any person at all, but take this opportunity to technically discuss my experience of research adopting the Deus2 on the seabed. That being said, I have had a rare case of misleading target ID happen to me, and although I read everywhere among you detailed tests of gold pieces falling in the high end up to about 85 points, I want to explain my drawback. The ring you observe in the photo, is an ordinary wedding ring that probably because of its thickness, responds with a solid 80. Forgive my assertion, but this is damning, considering the multitude of coins and leads that fall within those figures. While this is a rare case, which I might estimate on a scale of 1 to 10 as a 2, it means a significant loss of effectiveness in selecting signals worthy of excavation. I am ready to receive any comment from those who dig any repeatable signal, but I want to remember my own difficulty during a dive session, when with zero visibility, freezing water and time running down for the air termination, this is a detriment. My point is a subtle one that the so-called Pros will probably understand better, and by that I am not calling anyone stupid. (Life has brought me to the condition of having to live more and more frequently with only the gold production I derive). That said, the incredibly large scale where gold responds in the ID scale makes for an unproductive session, digging up too many potential high gold IDs. I hope and wish that Xp would consider a future change in the distribution of low conductors on the ID scale and as much as I may be technically wrong, there are tools that prove otherwise although they may operate with different algorithms. Feel free to say your thoughts on it, but that's the harsh truth.

Here are the finds from 3-4 hunts over the last week or so. They are certainly not like anything Mr. and Mrs. TTT have been finding but I can only show what I find. It has been quite a long time since I found a watch and this one was bouncing around in the waves. There is really not too much good stuff but there is one 14K/1.6g earring and one .925/2.4g ring. It is just time to show I've been out, good or bad. Here is the hunt from today. It is an old ring that didn't clean very good. We think it is a crystal in there and certainly not a diamond.

This afternoon I got in a quick hunt and saw some really nice local waves. It was a great day for them and I remembered my surfing days from Florida and Hawaii. I pretty much gave it up when I moved to California's cold waters. While watching out of the corner of my eye I was looking for a patch. My normal spots were not giving up anything so I moved along until I found a few quarters in between all the pennies. When the new 'hits' ran out I returned to work everything a the spot. It was the best chance I had. There was no time to go to another beach. As luck would have it I got just enough to keep me going without saying 'enough is enough' and out of a scratchy sound came this ring. It is 6.6g. That is for certain. It feels like gold but I really can't tell because the mark (which includes an 'N') has been written over with an inscription. It says "B + C Always 1-20-93" which makes me wonder the materials most in use in 1993. The stone reminds me of glass more than precious but who knows. The break at the resizing area made it sound real scratchy. It didn't have the full tone of a normal ring. It reads 8-9 on my 800/15. There is a green corrosion at the break area/resize area. Could this have been a ring someone inherited and then they resized if for a wedding? That would make the manufacture date and materials somewhat different. It was a good little hunt none the less and I think I go back tomorrow. This was a little 'target' I found before the ring. It really slowed me down a bit as pinpointing it and scooping it up became a problem. Just as I was about to move on I spotted it and felt it with my fingers. It sounds good in the lower teens but to my surprise it has a stone in it or ?? It weighs .25g.

After some time, we all have a spot that unlike others, we know like the back of our hand, that spot where more than others we had satisfaction and even lessons. It is the spot closest to home, the one you reach with little effort and know with your eyes closed. Well, two days ago I met a diver friend in town struggling with his hooka and having to take advantage of the few days of 0 energy for the last sessions of the year, yesterday I brought a cylinder with me so I could give him air and a few hours on the bottom. The wonder? Entering the water together in the home spot and in the slime that makes the water murky discovering that some god has ripped out tons of sand without anyone noticing yet. I start breathing at an accelerated pace, but I don't care because there is a compressor on the surface and for the next 4 hours I won't dare move away from the pit. I discover with little surprise that the holiday season has already brought the need for another 2kg of ballast to stay down on the bottom.... I can hardly believe it at moments, and although I have moved hundreds of boulders and searched meter by meter in over 15 years at this place, for the umpteenth time Mother Nature surprises me with a new combination of red clay, fine crushed stone, black sand, then orange, shells of all kinds, and large boulders on top of the cake with seaweed topping deposited between the cracks... The scenery tells of a bad current that has dug down to the mother layer as never before, in addition to old waves of a power rare in these parts. But the seaweed reminds me of the late recognition of the closing party. I start with the smile of a child at Christmas and listen confidently for the presence of iron, then silver, coarse aluminum, and dig up nothing but distinct mids... Bang, a reddish snake at least 20 years old appears.... I am sure I am in the oldest section, the most ravaged by dozens of other hunters, and I am struck with nostalgia. I may have seen 20 more of the same shape, but I haven't dug any in forever.... At that point, already happy to have caught a piece just where I least expected it, I insist and move a good 100 meters away catching sight of another really huge pit. It's been almost three hours and I'm starting to stand on the bottom almost belly down.The wetsuit has soaked through to the cells closest to the skin and the temperature has dropped considerably. You can tell by the loss of interest and control that you are about to get hypothermia.... Just before the headache, determined to resurface and already blessed with gold in my glove, another indisputable signal in the 40s stops me.... Bang again... Thin, barely bigger than my little finger and as beautiful as ever, comes a second ring from another time.... There is no way to explain, on balance I don't get to 4 grams total, but the place, the history and memories I have among these rocks, are back together after too long. I leave the beach struggling to get out among dozens of meters of seaweed, dirty and breaded like a schnitzel...I turn around and say, "You got me again..."

I apologize to the big boss for the place where I write, hoping not to harm him, but I want to wish everyone a peaceful Christmas and a hundred memorable finds. It has been many years and I think that from the gold fever I will never recover, so all I ask is to hang out with this big family as long as possible and may God send us luck. See you soon pirates!

With only three useful sessions this month due to annoying waves along the coast, the last of the three a few days ago was special. A variation to the tone profile proved effective at least for my hearing. Given the difficult environment where I usually research, pitch tone seemed the only solution to the continuous playing on the saline of 2-tone profiles and up. By really minimizing the instrument's chattery behavior, I fear I misunderstood the audio response of the peaks, no doubt overlooking signals that needed to be dug out. I am certain of this, because the same little patch where for almost two hours I used pitch tone without interesting signals, came back on in full tones giving me a hard time...I came to the conclusion that I was probably too used to "Minelabbish" signals, since in Square full tones the voice of the Deus2 sounds a lot like that kind of audio response. In the short snippet of video below, a ring of silver and one of gold jumped out after finally perceiving them correctly in headphones...

This time, with the newly arrived hooka compressor, I went exploring for another bit of coastline. At first glance, there was little to be done, given the imense amount of new sand underfoot and that horrible feeling of tender ground. At that point I adopted for the only decent opening, just a few meters wide and...Again a surprise✨ https://www.instagram.com/reel/C01lqe-qYcc/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

After the usual three days of weather observation and skipping scouting to confirm bottom conditions, this morning a window of about 3 hours presented itself before new wave energy made the spot where I thought I was done in October impassable... The few remaining signals, are items I have not picked up due to the lack of a net bag, but whenever I find myself on a target I know, I am able at that point to isolate areas where I have already passed in other previous sessions. That said, the day started badly with leaks at the 'air regulator and missing pressure in the tank. I manage to hold the bottom for just 45 minutes and am forced out on emergency for low air. I reach the car by traveling about 400meters with the harness and ballast on and change the cylinder. At that point I screw the first stage back on and open the 'air tap on the new cylinder and hear the unmistakable venting between the tap and the first stage. I unscrew again and notice that the O-ring has blown out. I find it intact on the ground and reassemble correctly. After all the time wasted, I wonder at that point if I should leave the beach, since no interesting targets have come to light and I think I finished already in this spot some time ago. I decide to persevere and although I don't feel like walking with all that weight, I return to shore and dive. A strong current pushed me to the side just before I went out to change my tank, and this time I follow it, letting it carry me slowly toward deeper water. At that point a signal among the 40 draws my attention and a moment later I find this unusual ring in my hands.... Lesson of the day? Insistence can pay off even when it seems over....

Finally away from a summer season in which I did not even touch the water, the time has come for the first storms, and right now thunderstorms and threatening waves are hitting "my" coast. So all that remains is to hope for the opening of a few spots with a reduced layer. It often happens that something goes wrong and, for the purpose of removing sand, the storm brings more. At that point heavy strategies and calculations begin. Several years back I went so far as to build a dredge and test it successfully, despite not finding any interesting material in the same spot. Constant breakage due to salt water and corrosion make the equipment fragile for continuous use, and too many times the expense of repairing it does not pay off. Abandoning the massive excavation project, I went through the use of a dpv and came to the conclusion that darn it, no one operates as effectively as Mother Nature. Numbers matter, whether you are mining fine powder or nuggets in the form of rings, if you don't explore at least 100 square meters in 3 hours, you don't even have a clue what the bottom is really like. These are not exact figures, but a rough idea of what it means to prepare what is necessary and how much to expect in terms of results. No photos at the moment, I reinvested the (little) material collected in October for a setup change, hoping to improve the effort/output ratio.

After a busy October in a spot I wouldn't have put a dime on, I returned after doing two more sessions on another stretch of coastline and returning home with coins and steel bracelets ready for the dustbin... After more than an ounce here behind me, now certain that I have checked 99 percent of the small gulf reduced to pebbles and clay with a veil of sand, this little pendant closes the party and wraps up November by now as more serious storms loom and I move away from the bottom. I'm starting to take serious note of data and timelines, because while it's not an exact science, the puzzle is composed of too many factors, and creating a pattern intrigues me. Have a great sunday you all.

Mybe you have or want a nugget ring. I've found a couple but I don't wear them. Would anyone care to show their ring? Here is an article I found interesting about nugget rings. What do you think? The Timeless Elegance of a Nugget Ring: An Exquisite Addition to Your Jewelry Collection - (ventsmagazine.com)

While scouting this morning, I came across a stretch of coastline and... You know what I mean.

With the arrival of new, increasingly high-performance tools and the informative spread of the Internet, the number of finds has decreased dramatically. On the other hand, due to international events and the market, gold prices have skyrocketed recently. Although I have owned Deus2 since last March, I only managed to make seven dives in the month of October. I must admit that a series of 6 out of 7 lucky sessions were productive, and incredibly the Deus2 paid for itself completely. I am quite busy over the summer, but I am finally starting to communicate with the instrument as I should. Below is the latest piece from a few days ago.

I have to admit, at the age of 40 my body is starting to tolerate badly all the weight I have carried on my back over the years. As much as scuba sessions are and remain what I prefer as far as standards of safety and effectiveness during research, yesterday morning I chose after four dives and a fifth non-productive one this month, to carry only a snorkel as my air source. The result was significant precisely because of my return to a spot where there was apparently not much left to pull out. With a stay of about three and a half hours before the wetsuit turned icy, I brought a few pieces with me in spite of the appearance of the bottom being battered by other hunters. I am slowly succumbing to the 'idea of an electric breathing system, not only in terms of weight in carrying, but precisely because of the distance from the bottom that generates great difficulty in retrieving the target just with a dry snorkel. The predominantly rocky coastline in my area makes a scoop and standing search a nightmare. So this is what I found ✨

As sarcastic or offensive as it may sound from the title, I open this post with the intention of clarifying this concept obscure to me... I recently tried using the mono program, because in addition to the threshold I can't do without and the pitch tone that underwater is ideal and easier to hear...Result? Definitely too noisy to last long, even from 14kHz down to shift 0. Now, going back to beach sensitive with the same setting on all program parameters, the detection depth is about half on targets like rings or weak conductors. I ask you what you think about this?

Hi everyone!! I wanted to share the amazing week I've had out in the field. The stars seemed to align with fantastic low tides coinciding with the mesmerising full blood moon. As I type this, I realise that one of the rings I found actually pictures the Southern Cross made with sapphires - perfectly mirroring the beauty of the night sky that blessed our treasure hunt. Typically, this particular beach boasts tides that reach around 1.8 meters, but the real magic happens when they plummet to a mere 0.1 meter. Such extraordinary lows grace us only about four times a year, and when I spot them on the horizon, I meticulously plan my week around them. Whether it means setting my alarm for 3-4 am to dive into the hunt or embarking on an evening adventure post-work, arriving at the beach sometimes around 9 pm and staying out till early morning. In the the early days of the pandemic, we uncovered this treasure trove, and it was not uncommon for us to haul in 1-2 ounces of gold jewelry in a single weekend, accompanied by a plethora of old and new coins. Whilst the golden bounty may have thinned over time, we still strike gold, harvesting half to a quarter of an ounce here and there on these bountiful tides. I've often joked that I make more at this beach than I do at my regular job; it's safe to say that my equipment has more than paid for itself. What's truly remarkable about these low tides is the access they provide to areas that are otherwise unreachable. I like to venture out to the back of the reef, a territory usually off-limits, and explore the edges where the ocean drops to greater depths. This is the channel where precious rings tend to wash down, but their recovery is nothing short of Herculean due to the chest-neck deep waters, unpredictable waves, and the challenging terrain of rocks and slippery clay. I'm fairly certain I'm the only detectorist to have ever braved this territory. I can't begin tell you how many headlamps and Equinox's I've killed from being thrashed by waves here. Our journey began along the shoreline when the tides were at a more manageable 0.5 meters. We scored a few rings, but as the tides receded, I ventured farther out, while my partner combed the shallows, raking in a bounty of her own, including a lovely 4-gram 18ct band. The first night brought me two 9ct gold rings as soon as the tide dropped to around 0.3 meters. As I continued to explore, I uncovered numerous coins, silver pendants, and more treasures. The lowest tide on the first night was 0.2 meters. A few weeks prior, I had struck gold with three rings in this very section. The second night, as the tide hit a beatiful 0.1, I ventured back to the far reaches of the reef. A strong 70s signal on my trusty Manticore had me expecting another coin. To my astonishment, I uncovered an absolute ripper of a platinum ring, weighing just over 15 grams – my first full platinum find. A few meters away, right on the edge of the drop-off, I received another strong signal, yielding a silver ring, a copper wire and a copper ring, all nestled together in the same hole. Funnily enough, my partner also found a full platinum ring last time we were here, which was about of half the weight and about 40 meters away. On the third night, as weariness began to swing, with fingers aching and my back doing its own thing, I pushed on, determined, like a king, and voila, I snagged, my last silver ring. 🙂 Over the course of three nights, my tally amounted to12 rings. My partner could only join for two of those nights, yet she managed to score about six rings and some amazingly preserved Versace sunglasses. All in all, a successful outing. Our nightly average typically hovers around 6-7 rings, and this time, we certainly had to put in the effort to meet that mark. Happy prospecting!