In one of my replies a few posts above, I mentioned trying areas of the beach where the fishermen fish, or areas outside of the typical main beach areas we hunt. This would be the area of beach/sand that’s either to the right or left of the main towel line. I mentioned this because I personally believe that rings & other treasures can definitely be moved by the water, tides, currents, winds, etc. I don’t believe that if a person loses a ring while swimming out in the ocean waves, that it’s just going to drop straight down and stay there forever. I think it might be there for a very brief time and then when the tides start changing, water starts moving, currents pick up, waves start crashing, I think it’s not too long before the ring starts moving further up or down the beach.
This has always been a theory of mine that I wanted to try, so I was pretty excited several months ago when I was watching a beach detecting video by Terry Shannon down in FL. Terry mentioned the exact same idea I’ve been floating in my head for many years, hunting outside the typical beach area where all the sunbathers are, by going down the beach either on the right or left side. At many beaches, fishermen will park their trucks and surf fish a short distance away, either to the left or right of the main beach area. It literally blew my mind hearing Terry when he mentioned hunting those areas I’d been thinking about for years. But it was when he started showing some of his finds from those unoccupied areas that I started kicking myself for not hitting those forgotten areas of the beach, because every time I’d get to the beach, my mind would always want to steer me to the most populated sections since that’s where the most people are, hence, where the most potential targets should be. Sounds logical right? After all, more people = more potential targets to find, right? But that’s also where all the other detectorists are searching as well.
But what if the action of the water has moved targets from the typical sections of the beach we hunt down to either the left or right of the main beach area, maybe a couple hundred yards down, maybe a ¼ mile, ½ mile, or more. There’s usually nobody sunbathing in those desolate beach areas ever, and the only people that tend to go in those areas might be the fishermen, or people just taking a stroll on the beach, maybe looking for sea shells. So not a lot of people, but also, no competition from other detectorists, as they’re all hunting the main areas of the beach where all the people are. So we would be depending on the water & the waves to move treasure from the main beach up the road a bit to where we can find them without fanfare or any drama.
Think about this, the ocean water could have been making deposits after deposits further up or down the beach for years & years. And since other detectorists don’t hit those areas, because they don’t “look” like they’re good areas or they just look too desolate to have anything decent to find, constant deposits from the waves/water & storms over many years with no other detectors hitting the area could prove to be a hot virgin area. At the very least, we wouldn’t be detecting around hundreds of people, being stopped by curious beach goers’ with typical “find anything yet” questions, no kids to follow us around with even more questions, and if/when we do strike a great find, there’s nobody around to see us place the find in our pouch, so nobody trying to claim that the ring we found was theirs, lol.
For any skeptics, here’s my personal “proof” that rings and things do move from where they were dropped in the water. I had also mentioned in that post that I had found a girls High School ring at Cape Henlopen beach in DE, but when I met with the girl and her mom to return the ring, she told me she wasn’t at the beach where I found the ring, but several miles south at Tower Beach on Rt 1. My head literally exploded when she told me that and I pondered how the heck could she lose a ring at one beach, then the ring traveled several miles north before I found it at Cape Henlopen? Plus, the ring was fairly new, only a couple months old and was dated the same year as the year I found it. Most High Schools have their Senior weeks usually in either late May, June, or in July, with most tending to be around the beginning of June, so it couldn’t have been more than 2 months since she lost the ring. But now, I have 4 reasons and growing why I firmly believe the ring she lost and I found did indeed travel from one beach to another.
- The first reason is that for being a new Class Ring, only a couple months old, it was really pitted and really looked beat up, like it had some mileage on it and had been pounded against the sand over and over and over. It definitely had travel battle scars. If it had stayed where it was dropped, didn’t move much and then I found it, I’m certain that it would have been in much better condition, probably almost new looking, as it was only about 2 months old.
- Watching Terry Shannon’s video where he mentions the same thing as what I had been thinking and then showed finds he made that had moved either up or down the coast/beach.
- My 3rd proof is brand new, and things get even more interesting. In just the last few hours, I now have another verification of a ring traveling up the coast. I’ll use this as additional proof that my theory about rings & things moving in the water is true. More details below.
- My 4th proof is also brand new and was also on the video that I'll be referencing below.
There’s a channel on YouTube called “Treasure Talk”. Every week, they stream the “Treasure Talk Worldwide Digging Report. They have member detectorists from around the U.S. that they’ll feature each week, from different geographical areas, and they’ll talk about finds that were reported in their areas in the last week, detecting conditions, any storms that passed by their beaches, etc. The new episode which I just watched earlier tonight, was streamed yesterday, so it’s brand new info. The guest that I’m focused on is Mark Paddack, who reports on beach hunting in DELMARVA, i.e., Delaware, Maryland, Northern Virginia, which is my hunting grounds. I haven’t done any beach detecting in VA, the vast majority of beaches I’ve hunted over the last 14 or so years have been either in Delaware or Maryland, so I definitely wanted to hear what he had to say about beach hunting in the areas I’m familiar with.
Spoiler Alert: Mark gives a lot of great info for our area, so definitely watch his entire report, but for ring traveling proof, fast forward the video to 17:30, as you’ll see additional validation that my theory about objects moving in the water at the beach is correct.
Mark talks about a man who lost a ABC300 ring at the Ocean City Inlet, which is a ring that Bowlers who bowl a perfect 300 game get awarded by the American Bowling Congress. After the man told Mark about the lost ring, Mark set off to look for it at the area where the man said he had lost it. Although Mark searched and searched, he couldn’t find the ring, even though he was searching in the exact location where the man said he had lost the ring.
Here’s where it gets really interesting. 2 days later, on one of Marks detecting group threads, one of Mark’s buddies mentioned that he had found the ABC300 ring. This was 2 days after the man lost the ring and Mark started looking for it, so just 2 days. BUT, where Mark’s detecting buddy found the ring was 13 blocks up the beach from where it was lost at the Ocean City Inlet. The blocks in Ocean City and also in Delaware are short, as there’s many resort areas and attractions, so a block in either of those locations are much shorter than a block in a typical city. Using short block measurements, those 13 short blocks equal .65 miles, and 20 blocks would equal 1 mile. So, in just 2 days, that ABC300 ring traveled over ½ mile up the beach.
2nd Long Distance Ring Find: I thought that Mark's story was is, but I just finished watching the entire Treasure Talk video that I mentioned I saw Mark Paddack on, and there was another guest with a ring traveling story. He remembers reading in one of the treasure magazines a story about a detectorist who found a class ring that was lost 50 years before he found it. When he returned it to the owner, they were both shocked to discover that where the detectorist found the ring vs when the man lost the ring was a difference of 50 miles. So that ring had traveled 50 miles over a 50-year period.
2nd Spoiler Alert: To hear about this 2nd long distance ring find, stay on the same Treasure Talk video I referenced for Mark Paddack (link below), just fast forward to 1:29:18 in the same video. I think the guy's name is Rick who tells the story.
This isn’t scientific by any means but just for grins, I did some research to see if it was possible that the girl’s High School ring I found at Cape Henlopen, could have traveled several miles up the coast from Tower Beach where she said she lost the ring. I’ll be using the short block measurement, so 20 blocks equal 1 mile.
The pic of me returning the ring to the girl and her mom was dated 8/1/2012. I found the ring a little over 1 week before, so it was most likely that I found the ring on Saturday, 7/21/2012. It took me a couple days to track down and contact the school to give them my info, then took a couple days for the girls mom to call me, telling me she would be down in Rehoboth the next week, so 7/21/2012 would be the most likely day that I found the ring.
According to Google Maps, Cape Henlopen is 21.2 miles from Tower Beach by car & road. There’s a lot of extra miles there as you have to drive out of your way to make a big loop to get back to Cape Henlopen. But if you look at the beach, it’s a straight shot from Tower Beach to Cape Henlopen, so I guess it would only be about ½ or so of the mileage compared to driving. To be conservative, I’ll go with roughly 10 miles or so. Again, this isn’t scientific, I’m just trying to see if the ring I found would be in the ballpark of possibilities, traveling from one beach to another.
Since 20 short blocks equal a mile, 10 miles would be 200 short blocks, so since the guy Mark mentioned found the ABC300 ring 13 short blocks (.65 miles) up the beach just 2 days after it was lost, I used those numbers (i.e., traveling 13 short blocks/.65 miles in 2 days) as a speed guide to see if it was possible for the ring I found to travel 10 miles in 1 - 2 months. .
So, 200 short blocks divided by 13 short blocks = 15.4 x .65 miles = 10.01 miles. Damn, just about perfect. I’m probably off on the mileage from Tower Beach to Cape Henlopen, but it’s a straight shot. And since the ABC300 ring traveled 13 blocks (.65 miles) in 2 days, in my example I took the 15.4 blocks I got by dividing 200 blocks by 13 blocks, then multiplied by 2 to get the number of days it would take to travel those 10.01 miles and that leaves me with 30.8 days, so definitely fits within the 1 - 2 month timeframe of when the ring was lost vs. when I found the ring.
It may have traveled slower and took 2 months rather that 1 month, but based on the numbers I’m looking at, they’re close, which tells me that it would definitely be possible for her ring to have traveled 10+ miles in 1 - 2 months, based on the ring that Marks friend had found, along with seeing some of the treasures that Terry Shannon showed on his video. .
To hear Mark & Rick tell their stories, check out the Treasure Talk Video I referenced (link below). Look for the most recent “Treasure Talk Worldwide Digging Report” that was streamed 1 day ago:
To hear Mark's story, fast forward the video to 17:30.
To hear Rick's story, also on the same video, fast forward to 1:29:18.
(71) TREASURE TALK - YouTube
(I hate having to fight for parking).
