Beach trash...

I hit the beach at first light this morning, excited to get back in the swing of detecting as I haven't been out in several months.  My first sight sadly was of the beach renourishment efforts. It looks like three to four feet of sand has been dumped at Seagate beach, one of my favorites. I get that the renourishment  projects are to help maintain local tourism dollars, but as a detectorist all I can think of is all the gold that is now out of reach until the next major storm.  But beach renourishment isn't my main topic today, it is our old nemesis, beach trash. This morning I found handfuls of it, in particular bottle caps. It is amazing to me that some people still litter. I guess if they are willing to take glass bottles to the beach, which is prohibited, flicking the bottle caps into the sand is about par for their course. I suppose I should be glad they are not smashing the bottles as well.  But I digress.  Now as much as we dislike wasting time digging it, trash at the beach also tells a story. Is the trash shallow but old? If so recent wave action likely uncovered a layer you need to work thoroughly.  Is the trash new but deep? Wave action has deposited new sand over a modern layer, time to move to another spot! Is there a lot of trash, shallow new trash and deep old trash? You may have found an undetected beach! Or at least one that has not been methodically hunted. Remember also, every piece of trash you discriminate out or decide not to dig may be masking that once in a lifetime find. Years ago I was detecting a beach littered with chunks of old iron. By methodically removing the iron I made several nice finds that were completely hidden by the iron. In another instance I was water detecting off Sanibel Island, a booming signal, obviously a can, hid a gold and diamond crucifix that came up in the same scoop. Sometimes it really pays to make the effort and clean out the trash.