Beachcombing for Success
Copyright by Alan Hassell 2/3/1998 all rights reserved
Beach combing has been going on for years, long before metal detectors were even a twinkle in the inventor's eye. People have been strolling along beaches finding valuables with only one aid, their eyesight.
Beachcombers should, just for curiosity sake, visit a beach they intend to search, while it's busy during the day.
This is not a time to work, but to make some observations. If you are going to reap rewards, you had better start by looking in the right places. Sure coins can be lost anywhere, and they are, but some places are more rewarding than others. People gather in large numbers on a beach has easy access to transport, car parks and kiosks.
An early arrival is essential, as the prime locations in the car park will be occupied during the best part of the day. A family with children might chose a location with children's amusements. Swings are a good place to look for modern coins, as the teenagers stand up on the swing to get a higher lift and coins fall out of their pockets into the sand.
Since your going to be on the beach for best part of the day, don't forget to take along a few essentials like food, drink, a pair of binoculars, a pen and note book, and a nice hat or cap to keep the sun off your face and out of your eye's. Since your main object of the exercise is to observe, try to find a nice high position in order to cover the entire beach.
Height gives you the advantage of being able to see above the crowds and what they are doing. If you're in the crowd itself, someone is going to block your view, will defeat the object of the exercise. Having selected a nice position with a high outlook, we can now note what's going on around you.
Women are fascinating creatures to look at on the beach, not because of the bikini, figure or other things they wear. Using those binoculars take a good look at their hands, starting with the left one. You guessed it, she's married. Now take a closer look at the rings, a nice big diamond that's worth a few dollars.
Then there are the gold chains around her neck with a nice gold ingot attached. You'd be surprised at how much gold is worn on the beach, especially by Italian, Greek and English people; they love it and invest heavily in it. They buy it as a form of decoration and investment because gold is currency no matter where you are.
Although they could sell it for money, the wearer has the knowledge that if they ever need it, it's there when they want it. Seldom if ever, do they ever think that whilst it is being worn, they stand a chance of losing it. The average person does not think that way, unless they were made aware of the risks they take with their jewellery once they are near or in the water. If they were aware of what could and does happen, no one would wear their jewellery on the beaches.
Even if they were aware of it, they seldom if ever remove their gold, unless they have learnt a lesson the hard way and lost some gold before. Even then, the individual might be a slow learner and is about to make the same mistake a second time. This is where those binoculars can come in real handy; you can observe people at play in the water and when they come out. It's amazing how many people will go into the water wearing rings.
What they don't know is that once in the water, they stand a good chance of losing them. Once they enter the water, their fingers will shrink and their rings will fall off into the waiting sands below. Boisterous fun between teenagers can cause necklaces and chains to break and be lost.
This can also happen when a person dives into the water, a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link. Gravity also plays a major part, why chains are lost intact, especially if they have a medallion attached to it. During a dive, gravity makes the medallion fall to below chin level, before a person is about to enter the water, he/she always tucks or lowers their head to reduce the impact in the water. It is this action that ensures a chain easy release from the body.
I can't come up with a better explanation apart from broken links. If you notice one or more people digging frantically in the sand, it's odds on they have lost something of value. It could be a set of car keys, a watch or something else. You could make a note in your note-pad or even offer your services with the detector to help locate the item for a small consideration. I mention a small consideration because your detector did cost money, and you will use your time and batteries in order to find whatever they lost. I have heard of several guys offering their services to locate lost objects for a percentage of the value of the object and are making a reasonable living out of it.
Ten per cent of a $2000 gold ring works out to $200 for what only entail ten minutes work. Nice work if you can get it. Before they even take on a job they ask the person to draw a picture and make a description of the ring to ensure they only find what was described to them. Now as we all know, the tide comes in and goes out twice a day about 12 hours apart. No self-respecting beachcomber should be without a tide table.
If you don't have one, the times are published in daily newspapers. During the summer months, waves and wave patterns are usually of a constructive type and deposit large quantities of sand, together with coins up onto the beach. At the other end of the scale, we have the winter storms, which overnight can transform a beautiful beach into a disaster area. Waves created during one of these winter storms are known as destructive waves.
Understanding waves and how they work will give you clues where any objects on the beach might be carried or deposited. First it is generally accepted that waves are generated by the action of wind. It is the duration or frequency of the wave that determines whether a wave is either destructive or constructive.
When a wave breaks, the motion of its water instantly becomes turbulent, like that of a swift river. This broken water is known as surf. In turbulent surf, Each Wave finally washes up on a sloping beach until its energy is expended. This action of a wave racing up the beach is known as swash; when the swash drains back down the beach, it is called backwash. This returning water is mainly responsible for currents known to swimmers as undertow.
Most of the year, the swash is more powerful than the backwash because the wave is allowed to run it full course. When waves break at a rate of ten or less per minute, each wave can complete its natural action without interference from waves running behind. These waves are known as constructive waves.
They bring ashore material known as the load, which is deposited onto the beach. When a wave breaks with a frequency of more than fifteen a minute, the backwash runs into the swash of the wave behind. The force of the swash is reduced in strength and it is these waves that remove sand and pebbles from the beach.
This action is known as grading. These waves are known as destructive waves. During this grading process, coins and jewellery are sometimes left high and dry exposed for the eyes only beachcomber. Those of you who have not experienced this grading process may find it hard to believe.
Experienced beachcombers can tell of glory holes containing numerous coins exposed by this grading process. There is also another vital phenomenon known as long shore drift that you should understand to be successful yourself. When waves break onto the beach at an angle, the swash will also travel in the same direction.
However the backwash will run back at a right angle to the shore. When this happens materials such as coins are slowly carried along the coastline. During the summer months, materials bought ashore by constructive waves are graded and carried along the coast by the long shore drift.
This explains why in certain areas of beach one encounters sand piled up against backwaters and other man made constructions. Here too is a great place for finding modern coins, although obviously older coins will be buried beyond the reach of the metal detector. In cases such as this, it can sometimes pay to scoop and sieve the sand manually without using a detector. It is done quite a bit in the UK especially where groynes have been placed.
With a little thought and imagination you can turn a bad day into a better productive day. There's more to beach combing than you would imagine, once you start thinking about it. If sea walls have been made from individual stones, you should search for jewellery in the lowest part.
Quite often a ring may lodge between the crevices; once it's in the cracks its almost impossible for it to get out. Anyone can find the occasional coin every twenty metres or so, getting to know your beach and some of the things that go on when nature does its work will only enhance your chances and good fortune. For those interested in obtaining further good advice I suggest you read 'COASTS' and introduction to Coastal geomorphology by
Eric C.F.Bird published by Australian National University Press
ISBN 0 7081 1106 8
Library of Congress No 83-72678
Available Canberra, London, New York. Hoping the above information will benefit those with the desire and enthusiasm to become more successful in this wonderful hobby.
Happy hunting,
Alan Hassell
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