Ping for later. I finally got a metal detector and have been dreaming of treasures. 69 coins and assorted fun junk so far, but still lots of ground to cover in hopes of ancient relics and gold and silver Japanese and Chinese coins.
I haven't searched for a detector in over a year
Which one did you get and is it what you wanted / expected ... ?
FWIW, the local area has a lot of water, I note that you are on an island so I hope this is of some value.
The other day I was speaking to a person who is an expert on such things. He told me that he wished he knew when he started detecting that all of his best finds would be in the water. No, he wasn't scuba diving, he was just walking along the shores, on the beaches, and in the surf. In the last couple of years he had found enough to trade in to buy a new car for cash and a number of other things.
From the perspective of a history that creates lost metal items, this area is quite young. Imagine what might be waiting in the surf of a nation as old as Japan.
So anyway, the point was, that while it seems obvious that beaches are a good place to search, it was actually out in the water where the most was found. Seems that in the last 150 years or so a lot of people have jumped in to the cold lakes for a swim and wound up losing their rings and a bunch of other things. At least according to him, aquatic detection was the best return for his time.