Metal Detector Challenge - Week 3 (Day 3)

Well guys, I tried to do something different today besides the typical park/beach coin hunts. After metal detecting the murky waters of Sydney Harbour yesterday, and after being booked this weekend for another harbour recovery, which just happens to be close to the location a Navy Diver had his hand bitten off by a bull shark earlier on this year (read story here) ...I decided it was time to get myself a Shark Shield. Now I realise the chances of being attacked by a shark are very slim, in fact I probably have more chance of choking to death on a peanut. But it is creep-a-rama down in that dark murky water, and I want to have some piece of mind that a territorial bull shark is not sneaking up behind me. So I went to my local dive shop who I highly recommend, Frog Dive (best customer service, ever). Since the Shark Shield sends out electric pulses, we we're not 100% sure if the device would interfere with the Metal Detector. The nice guys over at Frog Dive gave me a Shark Shield to go try. No deposit, no nothing, just go out and test it, and bring it back later. So I geared up and went to my local beach 'Balmoral'. I hooked the Shark Shield to my ankle and entered the water. The shield is a little inconvenient. It has a 2 meter long antenna which trails from the device. If you manage to touch or get it tangled around your leg, it will give you a little electric jolt. I've been told it is a lot like licking a 9 Volt battery (I never tried that one)..Anyway, I hopped in the water, and turned on the Shark Shield. Unfortunately straight away I noticed a pulsing sound through the earphones of the detector. The Shark Shield does indeed interfere with my metal detector. Just as I was tuning the detector to see if I could block out the pulse from the Shark Shield, it ran out of battery power.....doh! Well I was already geared up and had half a tank of air, so decided to do some underwater treasure hunting. I was really hoping to find some nice gold rings before the end of the Challenge, but so far these have eluded me. Besides the ubiquitous bottle caps and rubbish, I managed to find around $7 in coins in my 45 minute dive, (and used them to buy McDonalds on the way home) I also found an old predecimal penny in pretty bad condition. So overall, not a very productive day monetarily. I did decide to buy the shark shield anyway. I am hoping with time my brain will discriminate the pulsing sounds and I can determine which is a real signal and what is just interference...although this could be wishful thinking. To give those of you who have never detected underwater before an idea what its like, I took my underwater digital camera (Canon Powershot D10)...and took some footage of me digging targets. Being male, I struggled to metal detect, hold my scoop, pinpointing device, film and breath at the same time. But you get the idea :)