august hog, I read the bureaucrat's reply ("no"), and the link he provided to back it up. I read the link all the way through, and even did key-word searches, to make sure I wasn't missing anything that could pertain to metal detecting the beaches. Like key words "metal", "detectors", "cultural", "historical", etc..... I find absolutely nothing saying you can't detect.
Here is an excellent example, of getting a "no", simply because you asked, and it's the easiest answer to give. Ie.: "sometimes no one cares UNTIL you ask" type mentality.
So on the contrary, I would print that out, and go detecting. If someone says something, you checked, and found no prohibitions.
In the future, let this be a lesson for others, that instead of thinking we need to go seek permission for public areas, instead, approach it from the different way: Go see FOR YOURSELF if there is anything prohibiting your activity. It's as simple as looking it up, in this marvelous day & age when all rules, laws, are inevitably up on the web somewhere. Simply amazing.
I have read that some people, seeking to avoid this "because I said so" mentality, have gone up to desk-bound bureaucrats (like when going into a city hall somewhere, etc...) and specifically phrasing it this way: "Is there anything that prohibits metal detecting in the park (school, curb-strips, beach, or whatever)?". Now you might THINK this puts the burden of proof, on the desk-bound person, to produce such an actual rule, that specifically says "no such & such allowed", right? But even that has back-fired, and I have read accounts of where the answer given to the inquirer was "we would prefer you didn't" (as if the inquirer had been asking "mother may I?"). And when the person objected "but where is that written", they got the silliest things morphed to apply to them (that in all likelihood, no one would ever have given the matter a second thought to). Ie.: because you might dig up PG&E lines, or because you might disturb the spotted owls, or other such silly things no one really thinks of or cares about.
The "no" answer you received, is one that persons getting ready to travel to Mexico, have also gotten, when they ask enough ivory tower travel consulate lawyer types. And the answer is usually because of some sort of mental image an ivory tower bureaucrat has, because perhaps he is thinking in terms of federal antiquities (ie.: Bodie, Shiloh, Ghettysburb, arpa, the pyramids, gold bars, shipwreck salvor stuff, etc...). Imagine the travelors surprise when he shows up at Cozomul, only to see others having utterly no problem, and no one cares.
