Nights of Gold

By Chris Valerio


　

Time just seems to fly by these days and before I knew it, our next treasure hunting adventure and destination to the Isle of St Thomas, US Virgin Islands, had quickly arrived. Actually, I had not even fully unpacked from my last treasure hunt with George Streeter and it was already time to repack again! This adventure would be my first ever trip to St Thomas. I’m somewhat dramatic here because since I was a kid, I was interested in going to the Virgin Islands. I envisioned blue-green waters, palm-lined white sand beaches and lots of sun! When I was in High School my friend Paul Wilson packed his bags and left for St Thomas to make his fortune in the ice business. I always marveled at his bold and daring move at such a young age! Paul was mostly interested in making money, girls at the beach and drinking along with whatnot. The last I ever heard from Paul, many years ago, was that there were plenty of drinking opportunities and girls around the Island! I never heard from Paul again and I surmise that he either became a multi millionaire or fish food at the bottom of the sea! I suspect the latter. God Bless you Paul, wherever you are! But it really was not Paul who got me interested in the Virgin Islands. Long before meeting Paul, my father Joe is to blame for that! My dad had a dream back around 1965 to live on and charter a sailboat there. That dream was never manifested, but always seemed very exciting to me as a boy. Often I envisioned such a lifestyle shipboard on the sea and what one might expect the Virgin Islands to be like. A tropical Paradise! Yet as the years passed I never made it to St Thomas and only photos of the Island spoke their thousand words of someday. Then suddenly someday came, when George Streeter invited me and 6 others on a shallow water treasure hunting adventure for gold in the warm waters of St Thomas! That’s right folks, this was a group of 8! George, myself, Don Foster of NH, Peter Lopipero of NY, Charles Anderson, Paul and Pat Rodinsky and Mr. Goldmaster- all 4 from Florida. Mr. Goldmaster prefers to remain anonymous. Not only was this a big group, but was also one of those very rare times in the history of metal detecting that George Streeter invited a non-detecting observer along! In this case Pat, Paul’s wife. Pat was along for the ride and turned out to be a welcome addition to our group! Even though Pat did not detect with us, she helped to make our vacation easier and fun. As a gourmet cook Pat did some wonderful cooking while we were out looking for treasure. She also cleaned up after us and took care of laundry and other related chores. Pat is an attractive lady with a marvelous sense of humor and warm heart. She was always wishing us good luck. Her husband Paul is a very lucky man! Which brings to mind… having more women along on these treasure hunting vacations might be a fun idea? I would certainly enjoy the company of metal detecting ladies. Surely there must be some shallow water lady treasure hunters wanting to partake in such adventures? Any ladies out there interested in finding gold in the Caribbean Sea should contact George Streeter right away.

George rented a very nice Villa, Blue Horizons for our stay, January 31st through February 8th. This Villa sits on a mountain top overlooking the cruise ship docks below, with a million dollar view! We enjoyed the private swimming pool, a large living room, huge Master bedroom, washer/dryer and long outside view deck with BBQ, hammock, roomy kitchen and dining area along with beds for all. Except George did volunteer to sleep on the white couch. This was our home away from home and served us very well. We also rented 2 cars from Budget to transport us from beach to beach. I got lucky and got to drive a brand new Jeep Commander with a neck-snapping Hemi! Varoom! That power came in handy as most of the roads in St Thomas are very windy with lots of ups and downs and sudden traffic from every direction. Most there drove fast and it was like being in a mountain road rally! One could always smell our hot transmission and brakes! I normally do not drive like that, but that’s how it’s done in St Thomas. Additionally on the left or wrong side of the road! Which reminds me, a good business to start in St Thomas would be an automotive brake shop! Peter drove the other rental car, a Ford Focus with George as our navigator in the front passenger seat. I had it easy. All I had to do was follow them and keep the hemi on the road. George and Peter did a wonderful job, although we did make quite a few scary u-turns! Despite the wild mountain driving and every road looking nearly identical to the other, we got around. Really, I’m not exaggerating. Driving in St Thomas is almost like being on a roller coaster ride! On these trips and after driving in foreign lands, I always feel a small sense of relief when the trip is over and the driving is done without incident. Because driving is different in the Islands, the chances of an accident rise sharply. I do not want to scare anyone from driving in the Caribbean, but know that for the most part Caribbean driving is at a much faster pace than here in the States! Almost like a video game. Being an extra careful driver might not be enough. Driving too slow or cautiously could actually cause an accident! When driving in the Caribbean I often imagine some American police officer (traffic cop) riding with me in the car. He/She would be blown away by what they see and would not have enough tickets in a full case of ticket books, to write up all the moving violations in just one day! Often motorcycles drive right up the middle of the road at Mach 1 with just inches to spare between cars, nearly everybody speeds and tailgates, others park anywhere including on sidewalks and the local cops seem to look the other way. On top of this are all sorts of distractions such a cows, dogs, iguanas and chickens, all trying to cross the road to get to the other side without warning! While Island drivers have more freedom to drive as they please than here in the States, from what I understand all of that fun comes to an abrupt end, when one causes an accident. I guess that can ruin the entire day! So having full auto insurance when driving in the Caribbean is a very smart thing. In St Thomas my personal auto insurance fully covered us, just as if I were driving at home. So we saved some money by not having to buy extra rental car company insurance. But if your insurance company does not cover you in the Caribbean, then one must purchase insurance from the rental company for sure. A very smart thing to do! But actually I’m more nervous about flying on these vacations than driving. Although I did hear George say something about closing his eyes often as a passenger!

On this trip we all got along very well and shared responsibilities. That makes for a fun trip. Every morning Don or Mr. Goldmaster made a great cup of coffee. All I had to do was get up and pour! Charlie made pancakes, French toast, eggs and bacon for breakfasts. We ate our lunches out at Mickey-D’s, KFC or where the locals eat whenever possible. Charlie and Pat prepared simple dinners for us at the Villa. So we all ate well. Partly because of good planning, but also going major food shopping twice. My favorite dinner was the barbequed chicken legs prepared by Charlie and Pat, cooked just right! I was on a sea food diet. Whenever I saw food I ate it!

Our treasure hunting days were very long. We got up early and hit as many beaches as we could. Often driving to and finding a particular beach took up quite a bit of our daylight. Though by the end of this trip we had this Island down pat. Each night we returned to the Villa tired and eagerly soaked in the pool. But for me this was a special trip because on 3 occasions we went night treasure hunting! I have never hunted at night and this was an experience to remember and I now favor night hunting. There was one particular beach where for some reason metal detecting was not allowed. This is a big beach where many tourists like to deposit their gold in the sea for us to find. We tried detecting this beach during the day, but were escorted out promptly. But where there is a will there is a way and we found it. A friendly life guard suggested we return after 6:pm when all the staff went home. But this meant hunting at sunset and eventually in total darkness. We were prepared for exactly that and had all brought along small headlamps. So for 3 nights in a row we metal detected at night for several hours. This was a very exciting thing to do. We were like pirates in the night plundering an off limits beach and were sort of getting away with something! Hunting for gold and treasure at night reminded me of night crabbing here in Washington State for delicious Dungeness crab. One goes out at low tide and at night with a propane lantern and rake in search of crab. Night hunting in St Thomas brought back many good crabbing memories. The night air was still and crisp, the sea calm along with the smells of the ocean and saltwater, with the heavens above filled to the brim with dancing stars! There I was surrounded by darkness, chest deep in water and metal detecting for gold. Lights from a few nearby lights and anchored yachts reflected over the waters surface. Which each target dug I turned on my headlamp to discover what I had found in my scoop. Off in the distance were the other glowing headlamps of my treasure hunting partners. Every time a light went on, I knew that potentially someone had found treasure! Each night we found gold there and on the second night I found a ladies solitaire engagement style diamond ring! The main stone is at least a ¾ carret diamond with 5 smaller diamonds on each side, all set in 18 KT white gold and platinum! I could not believe my eyes when I saw that beauty sparkling in my scoop by headlamp light. Instantly I just knew the diamonds were real, as was later confirmed by an electronic diamond tester. I will never forget the moment and place of that find. It’s etched in my mind and I will savor this memory for years to come. It was as though that diamond ring was a falling star, somehow caught that night in my scoop. This is the stuff dreams are made of! Sadly I can just imagine the hearbreak and sense of loss felt by someone. Unfortunately there are no personal markings in this ring and if I could return this ring to a rightful owner, I would without hesitation! It is a very beautiful ring and the center diamond looks very white and nearly flawless! This ring is one of my best jewelry finds to date. I especially like that it was found at night. I find night hunting to be somewhat romantic and would call night hunting Midnight Blue- a favorite color of mine. However night hunting was not all fun and games. Night hunting requires some courage while submerged chest deep in dark waters. One never knows what might like to snack on you! As a matter of fact in 1963 and at the same beach we were at, a swimmer was killed by a 10’ Caribbean shark! While sharks feeding at night had crossed my mind, I was striken with a serious case of gold fever! And in this particular case I wanted the gold more than was scarred of Jaws! Yet to be honest there were a few times where I nearly jumped out of my swim suit. The bottom was a combination of sand and mud and with each dig of the scoop sediment billowed up like a cloud in the water. A couple of times I mistook that sediment cloud for something on the attack! Sometimes it was best just to keep the headlamp turned off. Fortunately none of us were eaten alive and we found some nice treasure while night hunting. I have always enjoyed seeing scooped gold glistening in the sunlight, but perhaps now prefer scooping gold in the dark? It’s just so very exciting! I will definitely try night hunt again.

While as a group in St Thomas we did not find as much gold as on some other islands and past trips, there was a potential to find better quality pieces, such as my diamond ring and the heavy platinum band found by George. On this trip our group found more than 40 pieces at over 200 grams! Mr. Goldmaster found the most, 12 pieces. I found 9 pieces of gold, George 8, Don 5, Peter and Paul 4 each and Charlie one beautiful wedding band! By weight George found the most, over 74 grams including the heavy platinum band. So I declare George the gold champ on this trip! Mr. Goldmaster came in a very close second at 67.5 grams and I third with 46 grams. Yet I feel my diamond ring was the best find of the trip, followed by George’s platinum ring. In all this was a very fun trip. I really enjoyed the fellowship of my treasure hunting companions. Together as a group we are a dream team, which helps to make such treasure hunting vacations possible, affordable and safe. And with the price of gold hovering around $1,100.00 an ounce, very $ green too!

There really is lots of gold to be found in the sea! If you would like to try Caribbean shallow water treasure hunting, give George Streeter of Streeter Electronics a call. (603-876-4443 www.streeter.org email gstreeter@ne.rr.com ) George has great deals on all sorts of metal detectors and treasure hunting tools. George is a very giving man and will always help you discover your treasures. Happy hunting to all and may the gold be with you!

Sounds like a great time was had by all!

Bob K

"There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure." - Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Great story. I want to go sometime