December beach hunting

Well the  Festive Season has come and gone and I ended up having very little time to go out and hunt. The hunting that I did do was all on the beaches around Cape Town  including Big and Small Bay, Llundudno, Clifton Camps Bay , Sea Point and Strand.
The finds where typical present day coins, some jewelery and some other bits and pieces. It seems that over the years people have started to realize that the beach is no place for your valuable jewelery.
That said there is still a whole lot of goodies lying about and it is just a matter of time before they come within reach of  a coil again, you see a lot of the beaches are sanded in and I cannot wait for the next big storm! It's time to shake things up again.

Just after first light , a thick fog hangs over  Clifton

Another pocket spill is recovered,  R12.70 in that small space

Our hunting starts at around 4.45 am and we use headlamps for the first hour or so, until it gets light enough to
see what is going on in the holes.
Although I did not have the best hunt ever , it did produce some cool finds and there was never much waiting between targets.

The mornings takings

Find where R69, a working parker pen , 2 pocket knives and a sterling silver bracelet. The bottle top in the picture is actually off  Llundudno and was down about 30 cm , in a layer of old kelp. It seems to be an old Oros top with the running  Brooke's man....it looks really old. I am trying to get  hold of the logo's history to try and put a date on it.

A really terrible pic of the top, my apologies. But it does give an idea of what I am going on about!

Okay! So the next coast we decided to check out was the West Coast, Big Bay and Small Bay first.
The hunt was ......well lets just say that we need a tsunami on this side! Did get a few nice pics though, and once again please excuse the quality but I think that the moist air on the lens of my phone is causing a bad picture quality.

Low tide exposes the sandbar between the bays, this shot is taken looking back from the island that is now accessible.

I scratched around on the island for a while, but there is such a thick build up of sand that I eventually gave up and just enjoyed the view.

Table mountain from the island at Small Bay

Here is Bushpig searching the one flank of the island, and the sun is just about to give us some relief from the nip.

After this session we headed in the direction of Melkbos and searched the beach infront of a school camp facility.
What we soon found out that this beach is the catchment area for all the trash that gets blown across the bay and besides a few really large sinkers and a few coins nothing was happening here either, so out came the phone and I took a few pics of the area.

I ended up trying the dunes but besides this view .....nada!

And here is a pic of my CZ 21 water machine

Then some excitement came in the form of a recovery. I was contacted by a gentleman who shall remain anonymous and told that his wife had just lost here maternity ring at the Strand. This was Saturday the 8th and at around 1.30pm.
So I jumped in the car and headed down there to see if I could recover it for them. Well we stopped looking
after 2 hours and I was quite disappointed, I was hunting with a new water machine and could not find a ring that was lost just hours before...mmmm.
On the way home I decided that I would return at first light and give it another bash. I spent the night going through the manuals of the CZ21  and experimented with the settings.
Well it must have paid of because by 5.15 the next morning I had recovered the ring and although it was a little off the mark of where we searched the day before I had no problem whatsoever finding it.
Okay so that was taken care of , Strand has warm water and I decided to give the machine a try in it's home turf...the water.

First sight ...yeeeeeeehah! Boooyah!

Platinum , 5 diamond in a row...hehehe!

As it leaves the ground, trying to get a better pic.....eish man!

So I phoned and left a message for the owner and got ready to get wet. The tide was on the rise and I started into the water. I had been in for about 30 min when I first noticed that I was being followed......
I looked around and saw that I was standing in  amongst a school of sting rays. they where all over the place...swimming around me at no more that a meter at times. Some had 1 metre spans ....awesome experience really!
I was frantically trying to pull my phone out again to get some pics but the waves where knocking me around and I still ahd a scoop and detector in hand so things where starting to go pear shaped rather quickly and I had to abandon the attempt or sacrifice some of my kit... I managed to get a few shots of and caught one just after it took off in front of me.

And in we go!

Starting to get light so now we can go a bit deeper!

What the FFFFrikkadel!

Just after a sudden burst of speed.

I really wish I could have gotten a pic of the whole gang, there where so many of them and they just seemed to tag along with me.
I met the client later and returned the ring, I must say that the rewards was most generous and well above my expectation. It really is a rush when you can recover a piece that is so dear to someone....and then get paid for it as well...... handsomely!
I took the kids back here on Sunday and we did a bit more hunting but besides some really corroded old coins and some hair clips, didn't find much else.
I spoke to the lifeguards and they told me that the rays where unusual and that they had to call the swimmers out of the water, later they had dolphins and seals as well, they said that it seemed to them something weird was going on that morning.
Makes me wonder what else was swimming around "perving" at my legs that morning in the water hehe!
Anyway, that is the latest as far as the hunting goes. But this year I am going to go out there and put my head down.

I have made some acquaintances up country and I am dying to go and meet them and do some Boer sites.
The next post will be on the recovery service which I operate and some of the stories that have come out of this avenue of the hobby.
Thanks for taking the time to see what  I have been up to and hope you enjoy it. I will post some pics  tomorrow of all the takings from these hunts.
Oscar