I was able to get back out yesterday for the 1st time since my famous Saturday morning outing before the day Irma came through. I was unable to get out earlier because I had some rough days coming back from Irma; I had to go in and assess my school’s damage, help clean up, and even gave out some leftover hurricane MRE’s for FEMA at my school one day. The biggest issue hurricane week was dealing with the death of a beloved aunt and helping to make funeral arrangements with another cousin since she had no children. There were some other trying and personal serious issues that I will not go into but let’s just say it’s been the most unbelievably horrible period of my life.
Yesterday was a teacher planning day so I knew I would be able to get a bit earlier than usual and get a hunt in before the 4:30 low tide. I headed for a nearby beach that I like to go to. When I got there it was closed due to hurricane cleanup. I went a little further south and went to another beach that I managed to get into. As I was hunting by 2:15 I noticed that this beach had the upper, protected dunes blown out. There were quite a few palms in this area that were toppled and their roots were scattered everywhere like spaghetti in this upper strata that runs parallel to the beach. I feel like I spent the 1st hour trying to see where I could find targets. The wet sand seemed to stretch MUCH further and be MUCH wider than this beach has ever had. Most of the targets in this area, which were few and few in between, were bottle caps and PT’s. Maybe 2-3 of the greenies came here. I went in the water and tried to work it but the ocean floor was like nothing I had ever experienced there. There were lots of canyons and valleys and almost no targets. When looking from above to the ocean it looked like a nice white subsurface fluffy layer that stretched from the shore out about 20+ yards. I then tried a wet area between the slightly sloped wet sand and before the newly eroded dry sand area where the palms and dunes were, almost no targets there as well. I believe this sand may have been put there by the bulldozers trying to recreate the beach that was there. The only section that I was having success in good targets was the blown out dune strata and it is there where I spent probably around 3 hours (out of my total of 4). It is there where almost all the greenies and all the sinkers came. I was hoping a yellow would make its way at some point into my scoop, but I was not hopeful as this was a previously dry sand area that just had about 2’ feet of sand removed. It was a nice amount of clad and greenies, and the surprise early Wheatie for these parts was a neat find. After the last 2 weeks, I was truly thankful to have been out there detecting yesterday regardless of my finds.
Yesterday was a teacher planning day so I knew I would be able to get a bit earlier than usual and get a hunt in before the 4:30 low tide. I headed for a nearby beach that I like to go to. When I got there it was closed due to hurricane cleanup. I went a little further south and went to another beach that I managed to get into. As I was hunting by 2:15 I noticed that this beach had the upper, protected dunes blown out. There were quite a few palms in this area that were toppled and their roots were scattered everywhere like spaghetti in this upper strata that runs parallel to the beach. I feel like I spent the 1st hour trying to see where I could find targets. The wet sand seemed to stretch MUCH further and be MUCH wider than this beach has ever had. Most of the targets in this area, which were few and few in between, were bottle caps and PT’s. Maybe 2-3 of the greenies came here. I went in the water and tried to work it but the ocean floor was like nothing I had ever experienced there. There were lots of canyons and valleys and almost no targets. When looking from above to the ocean it looked like a nice white subsurface fluffy layer that stretched from the shore out about 20+ yards. I then tried a wet area between the slightly sloped wet sand and before the newly eroded dry sand area where the palms and dunes were, almost no targets there as well. I believe this sand may have been put there by the bulldozers trying to recreate the beach that was there. The only section that I was having success in good targets was the blown out dune strata and it is there where I spent probably around 3 hours (out of my total of 4). It is there where almost all the greenies and all the sinkers came. I was hoping a yellow would make its way at some point into my scoop, but I was not hopeful as this was a previously dry sand area that just had about 2’ feet of sand removed. It was a nice amount of clad and greenies, and the surprise early Wheatie for these parts was a neat find. After the last 2 weeks, I was truly thankful to have been out there detecting yesterday regardless of my finds.