SUNY Students Search for Timbucto

I found this article from the Watertown Daily Times in NY, I only noticed it because I was once stationed at Ft. Drum, NY, which is in Watertown. Pretty neat, a bunch of college kids using MD's out looking for a long lost civil war era free black settlement... Timbucto.

Read more HERE.

Image credit: Jason Hunter of the Watertown Daily Times

Treasure "Recoverer" restores FL finds

Florida resident Bill Moore, Director of Operations at Mel Fisher's Treasures, a non-profit museum in Key West, regards himself as a Treasure "Recoverer" not Hunter. Not only does he use his MD in underwater searches, but he actively restores most of the finds at the museum.

Read more HERE.

Image by Rik Jesse, FLORIDA TODAY.

UK MD permits for Private land?

That's what Nigel Foster of George F White would have be done if he has his way.

Read more HERE.

Hobbyists Faces Trial in Canadian Court

A MD hobbyists in Ontario, Canada has pleaded not guilty after being arrested while metal detecting in a cemetery.

Read more HERE.

On a side note, if you are reading this as a fellow hobbyist, cemeteries are completely off limits in the realm of the hobbies ethics. STAY OUT OF THEM unless you want to be like this guy, or just be an ass in general and ostracized by your peers.

Nebraska Man MD's to Reconnect With Son

"...It was no fertile hunting ground. It had never yielded any fruit save the time the two spent together. But a month after he buried his son, when he went back, he swept the green grass with his metal detector. Before long he had two new coins in his collection, coins that hadn't been there before: That nickel and that dime."

Read more HERE.

Image credit to Charlie Litton, NewsNetNebraska.

Canadian Woman 'Enriches Life'

Just a neat, positive nod to our hobby in the form of Lorraine Vos from Canada. Recently she was the subject of a small article about the hobby from our buddies up North.

Click HERE to read more.

IN THE NEWS: Human Bone Found While MDing

Earlier in the year, though being reported now, a young boy in Putney, England was out suing his metal detector on the beaches near the Hurlingham Yacht Club where his father is a member.

But on this day, he found much more than he could have ever imagined. Recent tidal action must have unearth it. It was a bone sticking out from the sand, in which he, like most any boy, kicked. Curious at what it was, he picked it up and noticed it was a bone, with three teeth still attached.

The bone was turned into officials who are investigating, but say that the bone, a lower jaw bone, appears to be that of a young man.

Read more HERE.

Back in the Gulf, on Tau

Hey everyone! I'm back to work in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm on a new (to me) boat, the Geco Tau, only 1200m from my old boat in the fleet, the Odyssey. I'm still getting used to the different surroundings, so hopefully they grow on me. I'm also on a new shift. Instead of working noon to midnight like I did on Odyssey, I'm on midnight to noon here. That's taking some getting used to, I'm already half asleep halfway through shift.

It's good I know a few folks on here, two of which I met recently when I was in Abu Dhabi. There is a pic from my Abu Dhabi/Dubai post of me and two other guys, they are Ray and Randy, both are here now. Also, a guy I worked with on the Odyssey, Dave Johnson is here now too. It's nice to see familiar faces, helps you not feel like a stranger. Dave showed up with the coolest shirt ever, and he knew I liked it so much he gave it to me. It's a blue shirt with a gangsta Popeye on the front and it says, "I'm On A Boat!" How perfectly awesome is that!? Well, back to work, hope it's a good one!

Zoe Gets Stitches Out

Today was a great day to be one Ms. Zoe Cat. I had a plane to catch today to New Orleans at 2:30p, so I showed up to the vet about 45 minutes early hoping to have Zoe seen as soon as possible.

I took her out of her carrier to take her cone off and weigh her, but she couldn't wait to get back in her little pink home. So I snapped a pic of her looking cautiously our the little holes in the side.

Anyway, they took her belly stitches out, and she is out of the "cone of shame" so hopefully she'll be back to her springy, feisty little self soon.

Skunked at Silver Site, But Still Goodies

Around lunch time today I headed back over to the lots off of Witchduck Rd. Thankfully, the old houses that stood here not too long ago are still visible in Google Maps, so you can get the orientations of where driveways and yards were to get a good feel for the hunt. Not only that, but I used a great website (www.zillow.com) to aid in my research. Zillow allows you to pull up an address and get lots of info on it, including square feet, lot size, bed/baths, how much it last sold for, what it's estimated market price is currently, and most importantly, the date in which the house was built! I noticed a few early '50s lots at the corner of Amberly, so that's where I decided to spend the next couple hours.

Wouldn't you know, I found nothing. Not even a single modern clad coin! I found some big trashy items scattered about, but nothing worth my time there that day. I don't think I've had a completely skunked day like this in a long time. It was sort of depressing.

On the way out, I drove past my local gun shop, The Armory. I usually buy ammo from the spot, but had never actually purchased any of my weapons here. Today that would change. About a year ago I stopped in and they had M4/A3 style AR-15's for between $550-$700, a sweet price range. Sadly, deals like that did not exist on this trip. But I did manage to pick up what I wanted, a Rock River Arms (RRA) LAR-15 with a 2-stage match trigger and Tactical Rail/Handle. I got it in a .223, mostly because it's the same as my M16 from the Army days, and it's relatively cheap to shoot compared to a .308, actually 5x cheaper. While in there I saw something else that had caught my eye, and felt I just had to have. It looked like a miniature mash-up between a AR lower and an AK upper... and in reality, that's what it was. They had one bored in .223, but this thing was a "pistol", and that seemed a little much so I picked it up for $200 cheaper in a .22LR. It's a Kel-Tec PLR-22. It used a modified AR clip and holds 27 rounds, which is pretty sweet. And being a .22LR, the rounds are like a penny a piece, so it's going to be really fun to shoot.