Every beach detectorist has goals or at least a fleeting hope of finding some of the better things that are lost. We start with a gold ring… any gold ring. Then we want a gold ring with a diamond. Then we think about silver and gold coins. I got my gold coin in November of 2008. Then we want a platinum ring. I’ve been extremely blessed to find a few of these. But there was always one more rung on the ladder… a platinum ring with diamonds. The years flash by and always, in the back of my head, there was this picture of a platinum ring with diamonds. This winter, Vince Aluise, my detecting buddy, and I have been burning up the pavement, bouncing from beach to beach, in an effort to find “The Spot.”
Sunday, February 13th we went this-a-way and the beaches were massively sanded in. So on Monday, February 14th, we went that-a-way to a spot we’ve hit a couple times this winter. Vince and I stood in the lee of a high rise building, assessing the “swing worthiness” of the beach. Out to sea strong winds tore the tops off the incoming waves. “Looks interesting.”
We both were eyeing the rock and large shell filled runnel that ran down the beach. “Yeah, let’s give it a shot.” The wind-blown powder white sand raced across the damp grey beach in long, undulating streaks. Within minutes my sunglasses were encrusted with a layer of fine beach dust, dimming my world. My eyes filled with grit. The 20-25 mph wind was out of the WSW and blowing the sand off the top of the beach, sandblasting anyone foolhardy enough to be on the beach. I heard voices in the wind.
“Honey, come here. There’s a couple of idiots out there metal detecting in the sandstorm.” “Do you think they ever find anything good?”
“Uncle Harry had one of those things and found all kinds of stuff.” Soon I had a dozen pull tabs, a junk ring, and a silver ring. I told Vince, “There’s got to be a gold ring out here.” After three hours of digging pull tabs I resigned myself to the fact that the gold ring was not to be. Then the Minelab Sovereign GT’s threshold began getting louder, an indication that the battery was low. I headed back toward the parking lot, swinging as I went. Vince was way off in the distance swinging his Minelab Explorer II.