Searching with a detector in the sea, or for gold in Italy

Searching in the water is a seasonal thing for me, when it's hot, why not try the water. Last year I used the XP DEUS 2 detector to vacuum the sea in Krk, Croatia and this year I'm going to test the beaches and water in southern Italy with the new Manta from Minelab.

The trip was long, I am not a little guy, and we went on holiday to Calabria, specifically to the resort of Capo Vaticano, the 2100km I did in about 32h. In the car fit everything I needed, namely Manta, Deus2, Nokta Pulsdive, a large sieve with handle, two water headphones (XP BH-01, Minelab Koss), short 2.5mm wetsuit, water shoes, and a kidney for storing finds.

Only my son ended up using the Deus, and that was for an evening search in the sand on the beach, and I spent the whole holiday testing the Manta. The detector setup was nothing earth shattering, just search in water (Beach mod), upper limit 7, lower limit 1, response speed 4, unison, iron volume 7, audio normal medium, and mostly ground tuning on auto. The only thing I fiddled with during the search was the sensitivity, and that was from 16-18, the Manta couldn't take any more, and the crosstalk made it impossible to search reasonably.

I first used XP's BH-01 bone conduction underwater headphones, where they connected to the Manta via a waterproof reducer. The headphones worked when using the audio boost, but the machine sensitivity could not be set to more than 16. At 17 the headphones were already binding a lot when moving in the water and searching was not possible this way, when the audio boost was off everything was ok and I could get up to sensitivity 18. The second half of the stay I searched with the original Koss yellow headphones from Minelab, and there I didn't notice any problem at audio boost, and I could go up to sensitivity 18. The yellow Otsy's pleasantly surprised me in the heat (35deg), and I was totally comfortable searching in them, even for 3 hours straight in direct sunlight.

Well back to the search. Morning calm water and sand is an ideal combination and it worked quite well for me. Several times I made the approx. 15km drive to the resort of Tropea at 3am and vacuumed the large beach there, which was bursting at the seams every day (see photo). During the morning searches in the dark I appreciated the light that Manta has. The light in the water illuminated the reel and the bottom beautifully, so finding and scooping up the target with the net was usually successful in 2-3 attempts. Just clear water is essential, you don't get that in muddy ponds. I always tried to go systematic and pull everything. The effort soon bore fruit in the form of two gold rings, both 18 karat, and some chains and earrings, even a few euro coins fell, but there wasn't much in the water and I didn't enjoy the beach, there was always a lot of mess.

Gold ringIDs in the water were always a surprise, the small thin ones went around 17-22 and the opposite for the wedding ring and the giant one was 50-60. So the rule of digging everything in the water goes double, especially when you hit a spot where you have 2 signals per swing. But it was almost always pieces of ingots, probably aluminum, ground down over the years into oval targets (see photo) that every detector reports a beautiful tone (ID 50-70 larger pieces, 20-30 smaller pieces). When you pull out about 20 such targets in 2h, even searching in the sea gets pretty tiring, especially when they are hiding among small stones.🙂

The depth of the targets and the place of occurrence varies, I scooped up the big ring on the first try, it probably wasn't lying there for long and the water was up to my chest, but the small ring I mined from deep, and the water was up to my chin. In the waves it was quite an art, then after 10 minutes of trying, such a find in the sieve kicks up the morale quite a lot.🙂

The most reactions to the searchers in Italy I've seen were from Italian tourists, most of whom were here, and their questions in Italian usually contained the word "oro". After two days I realized they were asking about gold 🙂 but since they mostly didn't speak English we didn't chat much, they talked, I stared dumbly, and then nodded my head a few times, said "no italiano" and went on my way 🙂. Nobody kicked me out anywhere, even when I was looking at a full beach at 11am among people in the water, just chill. I was more like an exotic, so mirrored glasses, headphones and caps and pretend you're not there 🙂 .

All in all, the holiday was a good one from my point of view, the family relaxed and I had a good look. I estimate I spent about 27hrs in the water searching, both in the morning and during the day. Two evenings were spent collecting beer caps and other crap with my son, who tried Deus 2 (one ag ring eventually fell off and a few euros).

The result can be seen in the photos. Out of the 10 rings, 5 are gold, 3 silver and 2 steel, about 30 euros fell out, some earrings, a silver chain and a few smurfs. There is not always gold at the bottom of the sieve, but the feeling when you take the sieve out of the water with sand still in the water and you see something big yellow when you get close to the surface, the feeling is priceless.

If you're asking if it paid for my vacation... no it didn't, and if you're that busy, I'm not going to sell it for a few crowns. Besides, at our house my wife confiscates it right away anyway, when it's flashing she goes for it, I guess she was a magpie in a past life 🙂 .

Manta's saltwater rating compared to Deus 2 from last year. To be honest Manta leads the way for me, the audio presentation of the coloured targets always made me stop and wave back. The minelab sounds just go more to my ears, and although the Deus 2 is a super machine and found its gold in the sea too, I'm glad I could switch back to Minelab. Something suits everyone and everything is worth a try. 🙂

Where to next year? Sardinia? Corsica? What about you and your search by the sea, feel free to share your experiences.