Went out for my twice-yearly 3-week beach hunt and this time it was in Rayong at Mae Ramphueng Beach.
One of the main reasons that I selected Mae Ramphueng to detect is that it is 10 kilometers, or 6 miles long. Another reason is that not many foreigners go to this beach.
Minelab Excalibur II on Mae Ramphueng Beach
Since Mae Ramphueng Beach is frequented primarily by Bangkokians on the weekend, I figured this would be a good place with few people during the week. I did expect it to be trashy, but it wasn’t as bad as expected.
I did quite a bit of research to find a place to stay and with the help of a Facebook page on Mae Ramphueng Beach, I settled in at Mak Mai Villa Resort – well worth the 800-900 baht per day. Rooms are spacious with A/C, TV, medium size refrigerator, towels, soap and shampoo, and free WiFi. I also read about mysterious deaths in the water at Mae Ramphueng Beach but after doing some digging around online, found that the main cause of water deaths here were from rip currents – not the local superstitions. I also saw signs warning of jellyfish and of quicksand, but things get lost in the translation so I played it safe and only hunted areas that were revealed during low tide. And, believe me, there were plenty of areas to hunt. When the tide at Mae RamphuengBeach goes out, a good 50-100 feet of wet sand is exposed and I focused on hunting the low-lying areas and any small, wavy troughs. Finds were few and far between, but the weather was gorgeous for the entire trip and I was hardly pestered at all while hunting. I did run into major problems with my detectors. First off, I wanted to use my back-up detector one day, a Tesoro Sand Shark, and inserted the charged batteries and got nothing at all. So, will have to see what the issue there is later. And, with my Minelab Excalibur II detector I had a headphone issue from years ago that I have lived with that deteriorated greatly. My headphone cable had some kind of a short in it that occasionally would cause the volume to drop – roughly from 10 to 2. I could jiggle the cable and the volume would come back to loud. Periodically, it would happen again and I would do the jiggle again. Some days it would work fine for an entire 5-hour hunt. Other days, I would have to jiggle it a few times per hunt checking the volume periodically by running the coil over my scoop. After I had been at Mae Ramphueng about 10 days, I noticed a cut in the headphone cable about one inch long up near where it connects to the detector. I have the cable looped and held in place with a zip-tie (cable tie) and I don’t know if the jiggling caused the cut or if it is just normal wear and tear. Anyhow, I brought along some electrical tape and covered the slice and checked and with some jiggling, it was just like it was before. This lasted about one day. For about the last seven days of my metal detecting hunt at Mae Ramphueng Beach, I had to hunt with the volume barely audible. I could still hear the tones in “All Metal” mode and when I switched to “Discriminate”, I could tell if it was a good or a bad tone. I just really, really had to listen and block out the sound of the wind, water, and folks playing at Mae Ramphueng Beach. I continued to hunt and find the same old goodies – coins, amulets and junk jewelry but I am sure I missed out on some deeper targets. So, when I got home, I did some more research and decided to replace my headphones completely. I am mechanically challenged and about all I can do is take off something old and replace it with something new. I am not an electrical guy by any means. So, I was happy to find a guy on multiple metal detecting forums that is a wizard when it comes to the Minelab Excalibur metal detectors and he has made many modifications to improve the machine – and one of them – is better headphones. The guy’s handle on the forums is Old Beechnut or OBN and he has two types of headphones on offer – one is a Gray Ghost Aquamarine – fully waterproof and the other is a set he puts together called Skullies that are water resistant. I contacted OBN via one of the forums and he agreed to put together a set of the Skullies for me even though it is the wrong time of year for him to do his modifications. See, the modifications are his winter projects and he hunts during the warm weather. So, I got lucky and he said he would make me a pair within a week or so and also agreed to ship them to Thailand. The cost will be $100 and whatever the postage is to Thailand. I have read excellent reviews of the Skullies and really can’t wait to get them here. And, fortunately, OBN has put together a video on how to connect the headphones to the Minelab Excalibur II and it looks like even this “all thumbs” guy can do it in about 10 minutes. So, the hunt at Mae Ramphueng was good, but the problems with the detectors kind of put a damper on things that I hope get rectified prior to my next Metal Detecting Thailand adventure.
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