Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
Yesterday I posted a photo a a small "Treasure Hunter's Logbook." The contents as described on the cover are shown above. While all of the items in the contents can be useful, there are signs that the logbook is old and outdated.
A written landowner's agreement is a very good thing to have if you plan to hunt on someone's property. It is good to have all the details spelled out in writing, but there is another way to do things these days. You can record your agreement on your cell phone, which probably has a recorder, but that requires remembering to go over all the details and getting consent verbally. In Florida, you have to let someone know if you are recording a conversation.
The second item listed as being in the logbook is a personalized map. Now you can get some pretty good detailed maps of locations on your digital device. Some metal detectors provide location coordinates for logging the location of finds and also track the area you covered. That can be handy. It wasn't many years back when I talked about using a GPS device for that kind of thing. I once had a Garmin unit that I discussed using in an old post.
It was actually longer than I thought. I see a post on using GPS in January of 2014. Time really flies, and technology rapidly changes. See The Treasure Beaches Report Direct From Florida's Treasure Coast.: 1/2/14 Report - Detecting With GPS and Map Overlays, Silver Find, Beach Conditions Up North and Beach Predictions for the TC.
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| Beach Hunt With GPS Tracking Submitted by One Blog Reader in 2014. |
That kind of information can be useful in several ways, but I'll just point out now that the reader did what many detectorists do. They go down to the shore from the beach access and then go north and/and or south, so you can expect the area covered by the blue tracks to be some of the most thoroughly detected.
That could lead into a discussion of search strategies and patterns, but I've done that in the past.
The planning guide and diary are also good things. You might increase your efficiency if you go into the hunt with a plan, even though you might have to change it depending upon conditions and other things. the diary and memory jogger are also good. I've often wish I had kept more data on both hunts and finds.
I could do a lot of these things better than I do. By nature, I'm what I would call a minimalist. I don't like carrying a lot of equipment or fooling with a lot of details. I often regret that later though. I trust my memory and then often regret that too.
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If you have been metal detecting the Treasure Coast long enough you might remember the big painted letters in the trees along the shore that were used by the salvage boats to triangulate positions before they were using GPS. I'll bet there are a lot of you who don't remember ever seeing those.
If anyone has photos of those, I'd like to post them.
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Here is a cool true treasure story that I think you'll enjoy reading. It is published in two parts.
A True Story of Finding Spanish Treasure in the Bahamas - LetterPile
A True Story of Finding Spanish Treasure in the Bahamas, Part 2 - LetterPile
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Since Friday we released a new Giant Swallowtail and another monarche butterfly.
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Today the tides are moderate and the surf is only about two feet.
Good hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net