mts
Bronze Member
First off, thanks to all of you who answered my previous thread about St. Augustine. We just got back Saturday and had an absolutely wonderful time. The beach is fantastic and the kids and wife have already declared that it is their all time favorite beach (and we've been to quite a few). The old town is fun to visit and we hit just about every tourist attraction there was to see. This included the pirate museum, fort, fountain of youth, alligator farm, Ripley's, old jail, lighthouse, and casual strolls through the town.
As for metal detecting, I see what so many of you mean by it being a difficult beach to detect. I went out three different mornings and was quite surprised at my results. The sand is very well packed in most places making dropped items easy to retrieve. There is also very little trash. I was able to swing my detector for 20 minutes at a time in all metal mode without so much as a blip of foil showing up. It was unreal.
All things considered, I actually did very well. On my first day I found what ended up being the highlight of the trip. The 14k gold 3.4g Jabel ring shown below was found packed in hard sand about 8" deep. I almost didn't even dig it because the signal was broken. Being from Ohio this is my very first gold ring ever! It also appears to be an antique with the date 1947 stamped in it which makes it even more valuable.
Other than the ring above I found mostly clad and pull tabs. I stayed on the dry sand since my Tesoro Silver µMax hates the salt water. If the sand was even the least bit wet I'd have terrible chatter (even with the sensitivity on a very low setting). There were two main areas to detect: the soft sand at the towel line, and the strip where the cars parked. The towel line is where the ring was found. Not much else was found at the towel line as it appeared to be pretty well picked over. In the car parking strip I found quite a bit more clad and trash but nothing of real value.
As for metal detecting, I see what so many of you mean by it being a difficult beach to detect. I went out three different mornings and was quite surprised at my results. The sand is very well packed in most places making dropped items easy to retrieve. There is also very little trash. I was able to swing my detector for 20 minutes at a time in all metal mode without so much as a blip of foil showing up. It was unreal.
All things considered, I actually did very well. On my first day I found what ended up being the highlight of the trip. The 14k gold 3.4g Jabel ring shown below was found packed in hard sand about 8" deep. I almost didn't even dig it because the signal was broken. Being from Ohio this is my very first gold ring ever! It also appears to be an antique with the date 1947 stamped in it which makes it even more valuable.
Other than the ring above I found mostly clad and pull tabs. I stayed on the dry sand since my Tesoro Silver µMax hates the salt water. If the sand was even the least bit wet I'd have terrible chatter (even with the sensitivity on a very low setting). There were two main areas to detect: the soft sand at the towel line, and the strip where the cars parked. The towel line is where the ring was found. Not much else was found at the towel line as it appeared to be pretty well picked over. In the car parking strip I found quite a bit more clad and trash but nothing of real value.
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I never saw anyone else detecting the dry sand. But perhaps they go at night instead of early in the morning like I did.
