4 hours on the Hawaii beach

armyhunter

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May 25, 2017
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Went out this morning to the Disney resort, unfortunately was asked to leave only 20 mins into my hunt. I was able to snag 3 coins, one of which was a 1988 100 Japanese Yen.

I ended up moving beaches, and spent the rest of my time hunting the waist high waters and towel line. I found the usual thousand Bobby pins and bottle caps. But i made out with $1.97 in clad.

No gold, no silver. :/

But i did find a few items of jewelry, all trash, but pretty none the less.
 
They can actually make you get out of the water? I don't know the laws there but in Michigan the beach is only owned to the high water mark and the rest is public property.

I might do some research if I were you. Sure folks can ask but I can decline. Were you looking for a ring that belonged to a guest? Might help.

Congrats on the hunt.
 
They can actually make you get out of the water? I don't know the laws there but in Michigan the beach is only owned to the high water mark and the rest is public property.

I might do some research if I were you. Sure folks can ask but I can decline. Were you looking for a ring that belonged to a guest? Might help.

Congrats on the hunt.

X2. I have a printed and laminated "Riparian Rights" and the detecting rules & regulations for a local beach that I frequent. I keep them in my hydration pack in case I run into a situation that I'm told I can't detect there like I have been told once before in the past.
 
I'm actually going to do just that. The hotel there, which doesn't own the beach, called the beach management. I questioned their basis, which they replied that i needed to have a contract with them to metal detect.

I'm definitely going to do some investigating, because i personally call BS on that, but want trying to get thrown out by a big Samoan guy lol.

Living in Hawaii makes up for no gold..... kinda. Lol. Its always exhilarating when you see something shiny in the scoop.

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep y'all up to date on what i find
 
I'm actually going to do just that. The hotel there, which doesn't own the beach, called the beach management. I questioned their basis, which they replied that i needed to have a contract with them to metal detect.

I'm definitely going to do some investigating, because i personally call BS on that, but want trying to get thrown out by a big Samoan guy lol.

Living in Hawaii makes up for no gold..... kinda. Lol. Its always exhilarating when you see something shiny in the scoop.

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep y'all up to date on what i find
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Next time tell them you are a member of isis on a practice mission and they wll respond" No problem".
 
Wow! Even your trash is clean. I guess it is the pollution here but junk and coins get really dirty really quickly.

Good luck on getting the Disney thing straightened out. Seems like it would be a great place to hunt.
 
... they replied that i needed to have a contract with them to metal detect....

Were you on the BEACH ? Ie.: in the sand dunes to the water's edge. Or were you up on their property back way behind the high water historical mark ?

Unless you were milling right around their steps back up way back up right next to their buildings, then I'd say they were not correct. All the beaches there (with a few exceptions d/t nature-preserves like hanauma bay) are fair game. And the beaches there are RIDDLED with hotels that front the ocean. Since when did any of them (Disney included) have rights to say you can't md in front of their particular hotel ? Unless, as I say, you were way back up high meddling around their porches and steps ??

How about this: run a craigslist ad "Lost wedding ring near Disney resort beach area". Print it out. Carry it with you. If you get hassled again, just show them the ad, that you're responding to a call out ?
 
Were you on the BEACH ? Ie.: in the sand dunes to the water's edge. Or were you up on their property back way behind the high water historical mark ?

Unless you were milling right around their steps back up way back up right next to their buildings, then I'd say they were not correct. All the beaches there (with a few exceptions d/t nature-preserves like hanauma bay) are fair game. And the beaches there are RIDDLED with hotels that front the ocean. Since when did any of them (Disney included) have rights to say you can't md in front of their particular hotel ? Unless, as I say, you were way back up high meddling around their porches and steps ??

How about this: run a craigslist ad "Lost wedding ring near Disney resort beach area". Print it out. Carry it with you. If you get hassled again, just show them the ad, that you're responding to a call out ?
When the hotel staff stopped me, i was at the waters edge, and when the ko'olina beach staff stopped me and told me i couldn't detect i was about 6 -10 ft in the water. I'll be giving ko'olina a call on Tuesday to challenge their BS

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When the hotel staff stopped me, i was at the waters edge, and when the ko'olina beach staff stopped me and told me i couldn't detect i was about 6 -10 ft in the water. I'll be giving ko'olina a call on Tuesday to challenge their BS ....

Hmmm, thanx for the clarification.

Who or what is "ko'olina" ? (sorry, I don't speak hawaiin :))

Whatever channels you pursue to "get this over-turned", here's a word of caution: If this "pressing issue" winds its way through government bureaucratic channels there in Hawaii, you might open up other bags of worms. I mean whereas you might show that:

A) the public is not disallowed from being on the beach in front of that resort.

B) metal detecting is not disallowed on Hawaiian beaches. So therefore:

C) you should not have been booted.

Yet depending on how unhappy Disney is with this (trying to shoo away weirdos from being around their high-brow guests) , you could find them scrutinizing md'ing on OTHER grounds, to "get you away". In other words, swatting hornets nests. Like

D) what if someone starts citing "cultural heritage" issues ? After all, you *might* find an old coin. Or

E) "harvest and remove" statutes . That exist so no one start harvesting sand or palm trees for commercial purposes, yet *technically* could apply to seashells, coins, etc....

F) Lost & found issues. After all, you're "capitalizing off other's misfortunes" Right ? Last I checked, no Hawaiian md'rs are rushing to the police dept. with rings they find for proper repatriation attempts.

SO BACK UP FOR ONE MOMENT and tell us a tad more: When you were booted after 20 minutes, was it for the mere act of BEING THERE ? (like, they were trying to say the beach is for their guests only) ? Or was it for the act of metal detecting ? If it was being 'scrammed' for merely being there, then that alone is the issue (leave the mention of "metal detecting" out of it).
 
Koolina is a Disney company hotel and by their reckoning they own all they see. They have guests that always lose stuff and have a contract with a guy (Joe who inherited it from Dale) to recover said lost items. Check RingFinders Oahu online for more on that but yes. They've been bullying people on access to heir lagoons since they open the hotel. I just go elsewhere
 
... have a contract with a guy...

Ok. So what's to stop me , or anyone, from going to each hotel up and down the strip there in Hawaii, and making "contracts" to find every other hotel's lost guest lost-stuff ? Thereby "owning the strip" (in-so-far as md'ing goes)? And I can, essentially, tell my fellow md'rs where they can and can't detect. Eh ?

Gee, if that flies in Hawaii (which is one of our 50 states with water/beach/public laws that are the same), then what's to stop me from simply doing that up and down the CA coast-line too ?

Something doesn't seem right about this .
 
There are very few places on Oahu that are off limits to metal detecting. Most City & County parks, Hanauma Bay, Bellows beach (military side) and the lagoons at Koolina. Dale Rholf (retired Navy officer) was kind of an icon here in Hawaii having been one of the first to metal detect with water detectors when the technology first came online. I'd visit him in his garage and listen to stories of how he regularly found 1-2 gold or plat ring per hour. One story included his now deceased wife who between the 2 of them over a 5 hour hunt dug over 30 gold rings after a hurricane had passed to our west in 1992 a few days prior.

Dale was the only guy to challenge the powers that be out at the resort hotels at Koolina. By doing so he carved out a business whereby if a hotel guest lost something of value they'd give Dale a call and he would find it for a fee paid by the person who lost it. He fashioned his whole business around this concept, charging the cost of travel and a fee based on the value of the item lost. The Aulani and other resort hotels in the 5 lagoons restrict metal detecting both on the beach and in the water because they feel the optics of "scavengers" as they put it, doesn't fit into their family friendly beach ambience. Many have challenged the establishment out there but have left frustrated. Trust me...I'm one of them.
 

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.... he carved out a business whereby if a hotel guest lost something of value they'd give Dale ..... the 5 lagoons restrict metal detecting both on the beach and in the water because they feel the optics of "scavengers" as they put it, doesn't fit into their family friendly beach ambience....

Ok, what's to stop me from doing the same thing at other Hawaiian beaches, where hotels are close to the shore ? Or here in CA ? Let's say I know the guy who runs the hotel, blah blah. Why can't anyone do exactly as Dale did ?

Ie: A) beaches where the public is not disallowed, B) beaches where metal detecting (prior to that) wasn't disallowed, so presto C) I can get the whole beach to myself. Eh ?

I'm not saying Dale and his successor "didn't do that" . Or that you'd "survive a legal challenge". I'm just saying: IF THIS can be done, why not elsewhere too ? Is something different about laws there that allow a single person(s) to have all rights to md'ing a certain section of beach ?
 
I've understood that Ko Olina sets the rules being that the lagoons were built by them, this was told to me by security when I was given the boot while detecting in lagoon no.1 back around 2007. Here is a link showing what's prohibited and a note at the bottom of the page about the property being privately owned - http://koolina.com/destination/lagoons/ .
 
Try the big beach just before Ka'ena Point...Keawaula beach is a good area to hunt. I liked going out there, you still find trash, but there is tons of beach area to search and I found more rings and coins there than any other. Turtle Bay Resort's beach area could also score you some finds!
I lived on Oahu for three years...Good luck! HH
 
Hmm, sounds like a very interesting situation over there. I've found the situations at the resort beaches around here vary widely as well.

I've made friends with most of the beach security guys at the closest resort to my home (such that they ask me for help finding things and give me a wave and "good hunting" if they see me) cause I always end up there if there's a good tide an not enough time to go far.

At another I had a grumpy old security manager guy (the type who wears the fake police officer uniform) march over prepared to tell me off but I managed to charm him into letting me stay and even giving me permission to detect there in the future (being young and female helps with this).

Another big one has free public hours during the summer, so as long as I'm there during those hours I can do what I want (not sure if i'll need to get permission after the summer or if they don't care then either).

And just yesterday I got kicked off a different resort beach for the first time, even after paying for the privilege of being there. It was another security manager. He was prepared for a fight and stuck to his guns, but by the time I'd finished with him he was waiting for me at the hotel gate with a full refund (never mind that i'd already pulled a huge silver pendant off his beach, hehe) and apologizing profusely for having to kick me off. Oh well. He did also hint that I might be able to get official permission from the hotel manager, so once I get a proper salt-water detector I'll probably be paying that manager a visit!

I'm not sure what the laws over here are regarding beach ownership, but even if I did, as a foreigner I'm not really in a safe position to be raising a fuss over something like that.

Good luck negotiating the official and unofficial rules of the Hawaii beaches! Sounds pretty complicated there too, ne!
 
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