Virgin beaches - never searched!

[PKennett]

I came back to Singapore from leave and brought my new Whites V3i with me. After searching the net I realized that no one Singapore has a metal detector, and none are for sale here. I then asked Singapore customs if they are banned, as my mail avoids all custom inspections I wasn't sure. They said they had never seen or heard of metal detectors other than at an airport or by the police, and had no problem with them. I then wrote the Singapore licensing division and asked them. Same answer. So I then wrote the Police commander, and after 5 days he just replied. He too has never seen or heard of these devices, or ever heard of the hobby. According to him, these devices have never been used in Singapore and thus there are no laws against them.

The only laws are against vandalism - so digging in public parks, or any other city property will not be possible. However, he said I could search the beaches.

Singapore sits on one of the most heavily shipping lanes in the world - the Singapore Straits which lead from the South China Sea into the Indian Ocean. And no one has ever searched the beaches with a metal detector!!!

As long as I don't dig up WWII artillery or mines, it should be a good hunt!

Peter

 

[sniffer]

that sounds like prime real estate to me, tear it up and keep us updated. good luck

 

[PKennett]

Actually I found two tourists from South Africa who did manage to bring their detectors on a short holiday to Singapore and Bali. They found about 600 coins, and over 50 gold and silver rings. I'm psyched!

 

[sniffer]

KA CHING

 

[jf504mp]

Sounds to my like we should make that our next vacation destination.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Peter, I knew a fellow here in California, years ago, who ........ in the mid to late 1970s, got stationed in his military job, to New Zealand for some assignment. He brought a cheapo detector with him (his new hobby at that time), that was probably not even capable of detecting more than 4" deep for a coin sized target. He must have been the first person ever to hit their modest tourist beaches, because he said that he could dig hundreds of coins anytime he went, easily.

As far as people saying "no one's ever metal detected here before", I would take that with a grain of salt. People who aren't into the hobby, simply don't know. I've heard those type things said here about parks, or whatever, in certain locales. Yet I have to chuckle, because I know they've been hunted a lot before. To someone not in the hobby ....... in their mind, because they haven't happened to see anyone (probably never paid attention, as it wasn't their thing), then all of the sudden, someone asks if anyone's ever hunted at such & such place, to them, the answer must be "no" (afterall, they never saw anyone). If there is tourist beaches that draw tourists from out of the Singapore area (ie.: tourists from countries with modern electronic toys), then trust me: those tourists generally bring their detectors.

As far as a lack of any laws, just be careful: You got lucky that they didn't morph something to apply to you. Like, if you'd used key words like "valuables" or "old" or "historic" or "dig", etc.... your answer could have been different. It's sometimes better to look up the laws for ones-self, so that you don't get a "no", where no such law exists (simply because someone morphs cultural heritage stuff, or disturbing sand crabs, or whatever). This has happened in Mexican and south american tourist beaches, for example, where one person gets a "no" (because there is probably shipwreck salvor laws, export laws, etc...), while the next person gets a "whatever turns you on", type answer.

 

[PKennett]

Good comments Tom.

As I discovered above, yes there have been some tourists that have brought a detector in, however it is apparently rare. Neither the police, licensing or customs have ever heard of them and they are not for sale in the city. Singapore is a shopping mecca, especially for electronics. This is what puzzled me the most.

In any event, it's not popular, and thus the beaches may be fine picking! A third of the citizens here are Indian, and they wear a lot of bling. A lot!

Singapore is a police state and armed with a letter from a senior commander of the police force I should be good to go, at least on the beaches. I certainly wouldn't have trusted the word of a street cop. This commander is well known in Singapore, and I doubt anyone will question his decision. The other ace I have is that I am a resident Diplomat here, not a tourist. The Police can't search or detain me unless I am committing a serious felony or endangering someone's life.

In any event, I'll head down to one of the popular beaches this weekend and see what I can dig up before it gets too hot. The weather here is nasty...

 

[TerryC]

Take the police chief to dinner... a few times... then show him the offshore dredge you bought and offer him 25%. If the tourist beaches do what the Jersey and NY coasts did when hit by dredges, you should pay for the unit in a weekend! Good Luck! TTC

 

[Cachefinder]

-tag-

 

[PKennett]

I went out this morning to one of three beaches on Sentosa island, the small resort island just off Singapore's southern coast. I arrived later than I had wanted, and it was already starting to get hot. I walked along this one beach from about the half way point to the end and then back. I followed the wet/dry boundary, leaving 99% of the dry area untouched. It took about 2 hours to cover this small strip, and by then it was too hot to continue. Why two hours? Because the beach was full of targets, and the trash to treasure ratio was about 1 to 10. One trash object to ten keepers! On the way back I noticed that many more Singaporeans had came to the beach, and most were playing up in the dry area; lots of volleyball, cricket, Frisbee etc.. That's my next target area. Anyway, after two hours I retired to the shade of a club, had a cold beer, and looked at my treasure. I had SD$23 (about $17.50 US), 2 junk bracelets, 1 toe ring, and two finger rings.




Now remember, this was a tiny portion of just one of three full beaches on Sentosa! I'm psyched!

Peter

 

[sgratrider]

Good deal, hit it hard and Merry Christmas

 

[Bum Luck]

Go for it!

Sounds like you're in for a grand time!

 

[PKennett]

While I have miles of beach here in Singapore to search, there are dozens of tiny island outcrops just off shore that seem intreging to me. I have never done any seaside searchinbg before now, and could use any and all advice by you all. Where are the best places to hunt? Is it possible to locate items from hundreds of year ago, or are they all burried too deep in the sand, or under the sea?

Here's an example of the numerous tiny islands, infrequently visited, except during an anual pligrimage. http://leonefabre.blogspot.com/2010/09/have-you-been-to-kusu-island.html
You can paste 1.223681,103.861356 into Google Maps to see where this is.

Peter

 

[Tom_in_CA]

If you mean on the grassy parts of the island, the old coins may be in reach (just like any land-hunting, anywhere else in the world). But if you meant on the sandy beach, then .......... just like beach hunting anywhere ......... the coins sink down to un-reachable depths after a decade or two, depending on foot traffic, mother nature's re-adjusting/shifting of sand dunes, tide-sand-movement, etc.... The way to get old coins from the wet beach, is when storms erode out the sand. Be there right when the storms/swells/tides are eroding the beach out, to see if mother nature is turning the shore into a natural sluice-box for you You've got to know the right visual signs, to know if this is happening, since not every storm does it. It has to be *just* the right combination of ingredients (swell direction, tide height, swell height, on-shore winds, etc....). Then go out and look for cuts, slopes, "scallops" (inverted bowl shapes where mother nature scoured out a dip), etc...