I met up with my treasure hunting partner and his girlfriend at the airport in Birmingham and jumped on the plane. It wasn't a long flight, and the time flew by. We rescued our bags from the roundabout of doom, and hopped on the transfer to the hotel. I checked in and went to my room. First things first I unpacked my Excalibur 1000 from the suitcase and set it up. The moment of truth came, I turned on the detector and waited hoping for the low background hum that was going to be my constant companion for the next 14 days...There it was, my detector was back in business!
I put the scoop together, gave Eddie a call and met him 5 minutes later in reception. We flagged down our first taxi, and my Spanish got us to the first beach of our trip with no problems. There's always a bit of nervous anticipation as I put on my wetsuit for the first hunt of a trip, will the police kick you off? Are the locals friendly? You never quite know what will happen. Eddie hung back and watched to see what reception I would receive before he jumped into the fray, so I waded out to neck depth and turned on my trusty Excalibur.
I hunted alone for about an hour, then I saw Eddie kitting up. I had about €10 head start, plus I had done this beach a few trips before, and I had a feeling the gold I found on my other trips had been replenished by fresh unfortunate tourists showing off their gold on the beach. I told Eddie how I was doing, and we both got to work. Signals were plentiful, and my bag was filling with coins, and the dreaded ring pulls. I always dig each signal, even if I'm fairly certain what it is. I play a game with myself and try and guess what the target is before I've recovered it. I'm pretty good now at ID'ing the signals, I still get some wrong, but as the 2 weeks went by I got more and more accurate.
4 hours wading, and it was time for me to call it a day. My new dry bag proved to be a good investment, the taxi drivers in Spain are very particular about their cars, if you get them sandy and wet they aren't best pleased, so it made it easy for us at the end of the day. Also you don't leave slippery wet trails all over the hotel and in the lift. After showering the wetsuit, detector and myself off it was downstairs for some grub and a talk about how the beach was earlier. I felt confident that gold was there, and that it was a case of putting the hours in to get the results out. Last year I had found 4 gold rings on that beach in 2 weeks and €130 in coins. I was confident that I would be able to come close to that after adding up my first days findings. It was the first trip hunting with Eddie and his lovely girlfriend Dawn. My girlfriend was flying over after the first week to join us, and I was determined to get some gold on the board before she arrived. Eddie and I are doing some under water detecting at home, and Eddie took the opportunity to take his open water diving course. That put him out of action in the water detecting with me for most of the week and I pounded the beach pretty hard, doing no days less than 4 .5 hours in the water every day. My first gold came after 4 days. A 9k gold earring which was very light turned up in the scoop, along-side a ring pull! Both in the same basket! My usual saying "Show me the gold" was sung out with joy but then also, "show me the ring pull!" Which is my far more common rendition.
Another day of hunting passed with no gold, then finally another gold earring, this time 18k and twice the weight of the first one. "Show me the gold!" I was scoring well on the coin front, after the first week I had €100 but only 2 golds. I had found loads of cheap rings, and a few silver rings, but the gold wasn't forthcoming. I knew the gold was there, but it was just not going my way. It is so easy to get despondent and let the lack of good finds bring you down. It often leads in to a counterproductive cycle that can become self fulfilling and basically in a weird way make you almost give up. It's at these moments that you have to be able to fall back on your knowledge of treasure hunting, and your experience:- 1. I checked my notes from last year and I was finding the same amount of coins and cheap jewellery. So I knew the good stuff would probably be there as well. 2. I had found 2 golds, the fact that they weren't heavy or particularly valuable was irrelevant. 3. My learning and understanding of the beach was improving and my reading of the beach was excellent. I was dialled in to the hot spots. Some times you just have to grit your teeth and just crack on with it, so I kept my head down and anyway my girlfriend was due to arrive and she always brings me luck. Catherine arrived and then the day after Eddie passed his open water Padi course. It was the perfect start to the last week, and we celebrated with a bottle of bubbly and a few beers by the pool. Eddie and I have just bought a boat and are planning on some serious hunting together back in the UK, this was our first proper treasure trip abroad, it was going great so far! The next day I hit my first big gold ring, 6.4g of 18k gold, it was a welcome sight in the bottom of my scoop I can tell you! It had been a slow day, lots and lots of light metal, loads of ring pulls, only a few coins, all very new and untarnished. The sand on this part of the beach was very soft underfoot, and all the heavy coins, rings etc were buried too far down for us to reach. I was just grinding it out, when I stumbled on to a signal I recognised straight away! Gold! I had to be very careful recovering this target, if I missed it first scoop it could sink lower in to the sand and be beyond my reach. I dug, and there it was! "Show me the gold" Times are hard right now and this gold I was finding is to pay for a truck so Eddie and I can both move our kit around back home in England. It was a recent loss that hadn't sunk all the way down yet. The treasure gods were warming up:) My first decent gold find of the trip, and my third gold. Next day I did a wreck dive and a bit more free diving, I love the sea, and I always feel most at home in and around it. I saw some lovely things, a baby starfish, a big ray, a fierce eal living on the wreck, large shoals of barracuda and yellow fin tuna, life was good! Latter in the day Eddie and I were working away when he called me over. He had recovered what he thought was a chain, but said it had slid through the holes in his scoop before,he could get it! What a nightmare! He worked and worked tying to recover the target, after about 10 minutes he called over to me with a big grin on his face. "I got it!" He smiled. He had found an amazing silver charm bracelet, and it was a fair weight and size! We celebrated his great find with a few beers (and wines). We only had 2 days left, and time was ticking away, we needed to get on the gold! I set my alarm for 5am and I was in the water before the sun rose on dawn patrol. It was crazy watching a shoal of fish leaping out of the water all around me in the half light before dawn, with the sun starting to light up the morning sky. The boat that was bobbing at anchor not far away was a constant reminder about our boat moored back in England waiting to take Eddie and me on our treasure hunting trips. I needed to get some gold here to get a truck back home, and so far I wasn't doing that well. 1 gold ring, and 2 gold earrings. I needed to hit something good, and I only had today and tomorrow left.
I did 4 hours and then went back to the hotel for breakfast. It was a great way to start the day, and I had found 2 silver rings and €22, but it got better! After a snooze and a bit of snorkelling with the girls it was back in the water for another session. This time sun set! My first signal was a €1 coin, and I got the feeling that this was going to be a good session. Second signal gold ring with a green stone! It was twilight and I was wearing a head torch, so it was hard to see it very clearly. Next signal was one I recognised, ring pull, but I dug it to be sure. Yep another ring pull. "Show me the ring pull" was sung to myself for the thousandth time of the trip. A few minutes passed, then I got the gold signal, but so loud and big that I was sure it must be old foil or something like it. I dug the scoop in to the sand, and as I lifted it up I couldn't believe my eyes! The whole scoop was full with gold! "SHOW ME THE GOLD!" A really good necklace and solid gold cross, it looked huge! I put the gold in to my bag, and looked around for Eddie. He was miles away, so I started to detect my way over towards him.
I kept getting signals, and so my progress was slow, but the Euro count was going up all the time. Then, another good signal, it sounded like my old elusive friend gold again, I dug again, hoping it was going to be another chance to sing my favourite line, but no it wasn't to be. it looked like a silver ring. Oh well! I made it over to Eddie and we both had loads of coins between us. I told him about my finds and we called it a night and went back to show the girls our haul. On closer inspection under proper lighting the gold ring with the green stone was just costume jewellery, and I felt like it was all going to be cheap fake stuff because when I looked at the necklace, it seemed a bit to light to be gold. We got back to the hotel and my eagle eyed girl got the jewellers loop that we had brought with us. After a few moments Catherine said, "It's got a hallmark" I held my breath,"What does it say?" I waited... 3...no, 5 then an 8...."
"Then a 5!" I finished off for her.
"585, 14k, oh yeah, Show me the gold babe, SHOW ME THE GOLD!" In my excitement I had forgotten all about the silver ring, so I showed her that one. "This has a hallmark on it as well" she said. "It's platinum!" "Show me the platinum" I shouted, and we did a little dance! Happy days!
The last day of the trip was here, and I was on a roll! Eddie and I left the girls doing some shopping and hit the beach for our last hunt of the trip. There weren't many signals all the way up and down the beach, after the pair of us detecting for 2 weeks the beach was clean! There was just a couple of signals left, so I dug up some 1 cent coins, then there it was, the faintest of signals, but I recognised it. A deep gold target! I dug and there it was! "Show me the gold!" A thin 18k gold band. That was the last signal on the beach for me and it made a total of 6 golds out of 14 days, not bad, and also €196 Euros. I also found about 10 silver rings and a couple of bracelets and recovered someone's sunglasses for them, which they were very amazed at! Eddie had a fair old haul, and is now a qualified scuba diver, so we can hunt underwater together now as well!
All in all a great trip, and I hope you enjoyed reading our story. Dawn took most of the photos, so a massive thanks to her, and also to Minelab for their excellent detectors and service, neither Eddie or I had any mechanical breakdowns, or problems, he hunts with an. Excalibur II and I've got the Excalibur 1000. I also use a PRO-FIND 25 when I'm pinpointing on the beach, it rocks! My total for the 2 weeks was:- 14k necklace 2x 18k rings 1x platinum ring 1 x 18k earring 1x 9k earring €196 10 silver/other rings 7/8 earrings
Merlin - UK
