Hey all,
I have been following some of the posts on the forum and for what its worth here is my 20c.
It looks like there are a number of guys on here that are new to detecting and that's really cool. I am also on a few other forums and you guys seem to have a lot of energy - organizing digs / hunts, just trying to get something going. As I said this is only my 20c and is not meant to piss anyone off. I have been detecting for a while, please feel free to take a read off me on Newbies.
Planning a dig / hunt on land is very different from planning a dig at the beach. On land things are stable - if there is something to find the conditions are stable and you basically need to get your coil over the target and its yours. That's why you can book a metal detecting holiday on some old battle site and walk away with something cool.
The beach is rather different. If any of you are on the International Metal Detecting forum (Tom1) and have followed posts over the last few months, take a read again about the posts on the conditions at Strand.
Over the Easter time there was a lot of gold taken off the beach. But it was from a small area and that area had to be found and then there was a short window of opportunity when the sand moved and the old heavy items were accessible. The bottom line is that you can go to a beach and detect for a long time and find nothing or only light junk or you can monitor the conditions and when the conditions are correct - you can find some really cool things.
So to try and respond to you post of organizing a beach dig. If you want to increase your chances of good finds, (1) when is spring tide? (2) are we going from a no moon into a full moon or from a full moon into a no moon? (3) what has been the swell size and direction leading into the spring tide? (4) what has been the secondary swell directions, size and intervals? (5) what are the predicted swell sizes for the next few days? (6) which winds have been blowing and are predicted to be blowing in the next few days?
These are some pointers that may help. Just looking at Strand between now and the 5th we will be getting some big swells. Magicseaweed is projecting swells of over 18ft for Thursday evening and at 16s intervals - so there is going to be rough seas. The secondary swell is only 2ft at 13s intervals but the direction is wrong as Strand will be shelters and the swell will hit the Kleinmond side, so the chances of a strong cross current is less - which normally means less sand moving across the beach. The larger swell may push sand up or pull it off but there is less chance of deep cuts which are good for gold. On the 5th the swell projection drops to 3 to 4 ft. The tides are not good with the low being at about 0.6m. So monitor the sand movements on the 3rd and 4th and if the sand is being push up the beach, there is a chance of some finds at low tide on the 5th, which will be at about 6:30am or 6:40pm.
Which Beach to go to? Kleinmond will have a higher chance of sand being pulled off due to the secondary swell.
As I said this is my 20c if it sounds to complicated or like a load of bull, please delete it.
Happy hunting.
Alan