I Finally Got The D2 On A Beach And This Happened!

[CPT_GhostLight]

I've had the Deus 2 for about a year and a half but have never made it to a beach with it. Well a little over a week ago I finally got to get the D2 wet. My son was taking his wife and my grandson to the Disney resort in Hawaii and asked if we wanted to come. Before I could ask if they allow detecting there, my wife blurted out, "We'd love to!" She's always wanted to go to Hawaii. Of course we were not going to turn down an opportunity like that so we happily accepted and I started researching metal detecting on Oahu. I asked my daughter-in-law if she knew if they allowed metal detecting at the resort and she said she asked that question when booking the rooms and the resort employee told her, "Of course that's allowed for guests." It turns out, that is incorrect. The Ko Olina corporation that owns the 642 acres of resort hotels, businesses, golf courses, and 4 man-made lagoons lists "scavenging/metal-detecting" (rude!) as one of the many things that are prohibited on their property. Dang! 😠

Undeterred, I figured I'd find some place to detect, so I packed up my 9" and 11" coils, remote, WS6, WSA-II w/earbuds, Thresher waterproof headphones, my S-Lite shaft, MI-6, pouch, and travel scoop. Surprisingly, I even had room for some clothes in my bag! 😉

Our days were packed up with Disney activities, but I did manage to get a few hours detecting in at a local natural beach about 2 miles up from the resort. I ran the 11" coil with a modified Beach Sensitive based off of @F350Platinum's Hoover program. I played with settings just to get a feel for how they acted on the beach. I started off with Sensitivity at 90, Notch off, Discrim at 10 but dropped to 6.8 as that seperated out some very low conductors, Reactivity at 0.5, Silencer at 0, B.Caps at 0 but later raised to 3, Iron Volume at 6, Audio Response at 6, Magnetic Ground at Accept, Ground Tracking On, Salt Sens at 9 but reduced it to 5 later, and Max Freq at 40 kHz. I ran my audio with Full Tones, High Sqr, Offset at 5, and Audio Filter and Threshold at 0.

I was amazed at how well the D2 ran on the beach, which was right next to a power station, with no EMI problems at all. I had a Dive program set up to use in the water, but I was able to get in thigh deep and the Beach program ran very stable with only a little chattiness in the waves. I couldn't get out any farther because it dropped off very fast and deep, So I worked the dry and wet sand. I had a couple of locals visit as I explored the beach. One was a homeless guy who explained that he was the direct descendant of King Kamehameha the Great and gave me a piece of coral that he said was a white gold pearl. He was a nice enough guy and I told him thanks and he toodled off down the beach. My other visitor was a curious sand crab.

I was finding a few coins and trash in the dry and only deep sinkers in the wet sand so after a few hours I decided to move over to an area that is popular with snorkelers and divers.

Once there, I came upon a snoozing Monk Seal at the rocks so I worked around him to where people go in and out of the water. That's where targets start popping. I started finding a bunch of coins and noticed some movement in a nearby tide pool and there was a sea turtle looking for lunch.

I managed to find a crusty stud earring and a black ear gauge in the dry sand and some tiny bits of miscellaneous metals so I was satisfied the D2 was doing well and running deep. As I was running out of time I headed down to surf to see what I could find. The first thing I hit was a quarter signal and it was really deep in the wet sand. My hat is off to all you beach hunters who work the wet! The tide was coming in and on this beach it comes in hard! It took me about 5 scoops and what seemed like forever being pounded by waves to get that quarter out, but I got it! Hardest 25 cents I ever made! 🤣

Then I hit another quarter signal and it turned out to be a silver looking hoop earring which the incoming waves kept stealing away from me, but I finally snatched that too. It turned out to be plated, but I'm keeping it after all that work. The next signal was a solid and deep 55. Now that sounded promising, could it be something good at last? I got it out on the third scoop as I was developing a rythm with the waves and there it was, something shiny and round. I pulled it out of the scoop and could see a stamp. It was a 14K white gold ring!

After all the fun with the family at the Disney Resort, beautiful scenery, friendly people, amazing seafood, and even a day at one of my bucket list places, Pearl Harbor, the ring was just the cherry on top of the whole vacation. I couldn't ask for anything more. And as I looked at the sun reflecting off of the white gold ring, I looked at the "white gold pearl" coral my homeless friend gave me and wondered if he somehow knew... well Hawaii is a magical place. 😎

[F350Platinum]

Yay Cap'n! 👍🏆

You got the gold. 🥳 I swear if it's there that program will find it, and yes you are going to dig. A lot. 😏 

I have since lowered disc to 0, it pushes iron down even more and seems to reduce falsing a bit. I'm running sensitivity at 87 now as well, varying up to 2 if it's really trashy. Everything else is same. I should probably repost my settings. 🙂

I run bottle caps at 5, because when I don't, guess what I get?

Bottle caps. 🤣

You usually post your trash, I don't see any pull tabs or can slaw. 🤔 Did you notice the brassy tones on most aluminum?

I could not be more thrilled you got a gold ring, I generally don't go in the water but that's where most of it is unless the tides cooperate.

So glad you got a chance to do some beach hunting! And in Oahu no less. 😎

[Tom Slick]

Great Writeup. Glad you had a great trip with GOLD no less! I'll be heading to the beach with the Deus II in a couple of weeks. Hope I have the same results.😁

[Lodge Scent]

Well done CPT! Views aren't too shabby either. Those Hawaiian monk seals are about as common as gold rings.

[midalake]

8 hours ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

I got it out on the third scoop as I was developing a rythm with the waves and there it was, something shiny and round. I pulled it out of the scoop and could see a stamp. It was a 14K white gold ring!

I sense someone has been bitten by the beach bug. The only cure is more beach detecting!!!!  Nice find, congrats! 

[palzynski]

17 hours ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

... well Hawaii is a magical place. 😎

 

Hawaii, not bad for a 1st beach outing ... 🙂

Splendid pics and a nice story  ... Thanks CPT 

[ColonelDan]

Great adventure!  Excellent report.  I agree, the D2 is the best beach detector I've ever used since 1970.  👍

[Ogliuga]

Very nice report. Thanks for sharing!

[matt]

Great write up! Hawaii is an amazing place and your pictures prove it. We loved it so much we bought a house there!

Congrats on the white gold ring. That's a great find. Hunting in the surf is definitely a tough task, but can be rewarding.

The sea life is always fun to see. The monk seals are protected and on Maui they usually set up a perimeter of safety fencing to keep people away from them. My wife and daughter love the turtles and have named a few of them that we regularly see at the beach across the street from our house. Unfortunately, we won't be able to see them for a couple years because our house is in Lahaina. We are one of the few "lucky" people that didn't lose our house to the fire.

[CPT_GhostLight]

18 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Yay Cap'n! 👍🏆

You got the gold. 🥳 I swear if it's there that program will find it, and yes you are going to dig. A lot. 😏 

I have since lowered disc to 0, it pushes iron down even more and seems to reduce falsing a bit. I'm running sensitivity at 87 now as well, varying up to 2 if it's really trashy. Everything else is same. I should probably repost my settings. 🙂

I run bottle caps at 5, because when I don't, guess what I get?

Bottle caps. 🤣

You usually post your trash, I don't see any pull tabs or can slaw. 🤔 Did you notice the brassy tones on most aluminum?

I could not be more thrilled you got a gold ring, I generally don't go in the water but that's where most of it is unless the tides cooperate.

So glad you got a chance to do some beach hunting! And in Oahu no less. 😎

Thanks, F350! My trash photo is the 3rd one down, only 3 1/2 pull tabs and 5 bottle caps. I wasn't out too long and this beach was pretty clean. I could definitley tell the pull tabs and b-caps before I dug them and a few were surface finds. The D2 sure made a good target sound good. Even that crusty stud earring, which rang up in the iron range had a different kind of sound that said "dig me". Of course the sinkers all sounded good, and the big ones sound really good, but I was digging everything.